February 18, 2025
The Innovation Ambassadors program counting 84 innovative projects submitted from 24 countries worldwide in 2024, shows that innovation can be found everywhere at BNP Paribas Cardif.
Learn more about the importance of continuous education in the distribution industry and how BNP Paribas Cardif in Japan, by leveraging Tovie.Al Tutor Bot, helps our partner salespeople develop a better understanding of CPI products.
Introduce yourself briefly: country, division, main tasks, personal interests outside the company (e.g., leisure and hobbies)
Hello, my name is Hiroshi Chin. I am from Japan and work in the Transformation Division at BNP Paribas Cardif in Japan. My role is Analytics Manager and Chief Data Officer. My primary responsibility is to foster a data-driven culture within the company and drive digital transformation.
In recent years, my focus has been on analytics. We have conducted a series of analyses on both internal and external data, which has helped strengthen our partnerships through data-driven insights.
In terms of innovation, last year, we introduced a chatbot for customer education, which we call the CPI Tutor. This project has been an exciting initiative within our company, enhancing customer engagement and learning experiences through AI.
Outside of work, I enjoy product making. In my free time, I experiment with making cheese and occasionally bread at home.
Tell us about your project: its main focus, what is is about, how it came about, and what it will bring to BNP Paribas Cardif.
Our project aims to enhance the education of our partner salespeople, helping them develop a better understanding of CPI products. By strengthening their foundational knowledge, they can offer and distribute more suitable plans to end users.
To achieve this goal, we have been conducting CPI Tutor lessons for our partner sales teams. However, due to limited human resources,-our team consists of only four people-it has been challenging to scale these sessions nationwide. Additionally, we work with approximately 70 partners, many of whom have more than tens of branches, resulting in a large number of salespeople to train.
Given these challenges, we came up with the idea of leveraging AI and chatbots to provide remote educational courses. This approach allows us to deliver training more efficiently and ensure broader accessibility for our partners. Additionally, by offering digitalized services like CPI Tutor, we aim to showcase our company digital transformation capabilities. This tool not only enhances training but also serves as a valuable asset in negotiations with our partners, demonstrating our technological strengths and innovation.
Also, this is the first project in BNP Paribas Cardif to utilize Tovie.ai- a company-supported Chat bot platform. This chatbot will provide users with a unique and interactive experience. First, it will educate users using a Data book – a text document explaining different aspects of CPI in Japanese.
Second, it will offer quizzes to reinforce learning.
Third, it will engage users in role-playing exercises, providing a practical speaking experience to enhance their sales communication skills.
Additionally, all relevant documents will be displayed on the screen within the dialogue window for seamless reference. The chatbot leverages basic NLP (Natural Language Processing) to assess whether the role-play responses contain the necessary sales content, ensuring a comprehensive training experience.
What did you find most striking/surprising during this project (perhaps you have an anecdote to tell us)?
Although the first version of our chatbot prototype has limited functionality. In the POC, we found more than around 80% of users considered this solution useful. In next stage, we plan to broaden our product offerings by introducing additional coverage options including product knowledge or insurance claim knowledge. We will also implement a FAQ section to streamline partner inquiries and provide easier access to essential information. These improvements aim to reduce the inquiry from the partner.
Many of our partners and their salespeople have found it valuable for strengthening their CPI knowledge and supporting their daily work. Given this positive feedback, we believe there is great potential to continue improving the CPI Tutor and further align it with our goals.
From an AI perspective, leveraging AI for education is both an exciting and challenging approach. It presents new opportunities that were not possible in the past in the industry. Therefore, we should continue researching and investing in this field to enhance our capabilities and maximize its impact.
What advice would you give to employees who also want to innovate?
Right now, we are in a highly dynamic era filled with opportunities, especially in the field of AI, where progress is advancing at an unprecedented pace. To keep up with these rapid changes, we must stay creative and embrace challenges within the company.