Bank of America’s virtual assistant Erica might be able to alert users of double charges in the future, Bank Innovation has learned. In the meantime, Erica still has a long way to go before it could perform such complex tasks.

For instance, ask Erica, “What’s my spending this month?” and you’ll get an answer, but add another layer of nuance to that question, such as, “What’s my spend with Uber?” And Erica will not be able to answer the question.

“Erica currently doesn’t provide an aggregated total spend for merchants,” Betty Reiss, head of communications at BofA told Bank Innovation. “It does provide a list of transactions by merchant — going back as far as 18 months.”

“As we’ve stressed, Erica will continue to evolve over time, and we’re constantly evaluating client feedback,” Reiss said.

And indeed, client feedback is key when it comes to virtual assistants, Kasisto CEO and co-founder Zor Gorelov explained. Based in New York, Kasisto creates virtual assistants for banks on its conversational AI platform, KAI. Most recently, it created Clari — a conversational chatbot — for TD Bank Group in Canada. TD Clari went live earlier this month.

“Client feedback is important, not just because it sounds nice,” Gorelov told Bank Innovation. “For AI-based virtual assistants, teaching and learning are fundamental to how good or how bad they work. That learning comes from customer interaction.”

“Most people say, ‘oh the virtual assistant is self-taught,’ but the learning just doesn’t happen,” he explained. “At Kasisto, for example, data from on customer interactions is collected by a data-team and then fed into the system. These AI systems are then taught how to interpret and respond to these questions.”

Erica’s inability to give a merchant-specific spend amount is likely because most customers are not asking for it, according to Eran Livneh, VP of marketing at Personetics, which worked with Royal Bank of Canada to create NOMI, AI-driven PFM feature.

“Most virtual assistants can respond to a question such as ‘show me my spending for Uber,’ however the data shows that customers don’t really ask such questions,” Livneh of Personetics told Bank Innovation. “Our approach (and NOMI’s) would be to highlight important trends and exceptions, so it would highlight spending on transportation (or any other category) if it is higher this month compared to previous months. We can also offer to set up a budget for this category to help control the spend moving forward.”

BofA’s Erica does not have this feature yet.

But Livneh warns that NOMI “is not a virtual assistant. It is not designed to respond to questions but proactively offers insight, advice, and automated actions that help customers better manage their financial lives.”

Interestingly, NOMI can already alert customers of double charges, a feature BofA is still working to add.

“Instead of waiting for the customer to figure out that they were charged twice and ask about it (which, as indicated, no virtual assistant can help with),” Livneh continued in an email, “it would proactively push this information to the customer, so it is not missed.”

RBC does not disclose its NOMI numbers. Erica currently has 4.8 million users, according to BofA’s most recent fourth-quarter report. BofA reported 26.4 million active mobile users and 32.2 million digital users (mobile and online combined) in the same report.

“The logic to alert clients of potential double charges is also something we’ll look at in the future,” Reiss told Bank Innovation. “We feel Erica has come a long way in a short time. We’re also encouraged by the response from our clients and excited to continue expanding the breadth of service and guidance offered to help make managing their finances easier.”

In the meantime, “if Erica is unable to accommodate a request, the client is given the option to connect directly with a specialist who receives the call pre-authenticated to expedite service, and we’ve received very favorable feedback around the transition from clients,” Reiss told Bank Innovation.

But once transferred, the wait time at the BofA call center lends itself to a separate issue altogether. Whether that call is made through Erica or the bank’s customer service number, customers could be on hold for 30 minutes just to find out why there was a double charge on their card.

One person tweeted:

Been on hold for 40 minutes trying to report card fraud. Any other way I can get in contact?

— Grace Wegener (@graceweg) January 4, 2019

BofA was recently certified by J.D. Power for customer experience on mobile and website. “It’s the first bank to receive this certification,” Bob Neuhaus, VP of Global Financial Services at J.D. Power, told Bank Innovation.  This certification is based on various factors such as design, user experience, seamlessness, ease of operating, and customer service.