It’s a universally frustrating experience for any customer who calls a bank for assistance. The customer must choose a language preference, verify their identity, and then explain – usually in detail – what prompted them to reach out. All this has to happen before anyone can start resolving their issue.
"I think anyone can relate to that frustration," said Dino D'Agostino, a 10-year veteran of TD and the brains behind many of the Bank’s patented technologies.
TD Omni Dial, a technology invented by D’Agostino, helps contact centre representatives at the Bank understand the issue or concern before they start interacting with a customer.
Let's say the customer – we'll call her Miriam – has a question about one of her transactions in her chequing account, so she clicks on the transaction when she is logged in to her account through EasyWeb or the TD app.
Click to zoom
When Miriam clicks on Contact Us in the app, she is connected to a contact centre representative who already knows who she is, why she's calling, and what transaction the call is about, D'Agostino said.
"You're logged in already, so you're authenticated. When you call us, we not only know who you are and what language you speak, but we know what you're calling about ahead of time," he said.
By fostering an environment of innovation that gives rise to ideas like TD Omni Dial, the Bank has filed more than 2,000 patent applications since 2020 – making it one of the top two patent filers in Canada in 2024.
D'Agostino, a TD Distinguished Full Stack Architect, got involved in the Bank’s patent program via his work helping uncover ways to improve the customer experience through technological innovation.
"My role is basically to help drive innovation across technology in our businesses," he said.
"I'm always looking for ways to reduce friction, to work faster, or to streamline something."
And he's not the only one. D'Agostino is part of an elite group of inventors at TD, all of whom have contributed to at least 100 patents or have been named the Bank’s Inventor of the Year.
D’Agostino’s done both.
"This group functions not only to create inventions, but to mentor other people and help drive innovation across the Bank," D'Agostino said.
As a part of TD Invent, the Bank’s strategic, bank-wide umbrella effort to power innovation, any colleague, not just those in the elite inventor group, can submit an idea they think a customer or coworker might want or need.
They can join ideation sessions to address technological or business challenges and if their contribution is captured in a patent application, they will be named as an inventor in any resulting patents.
More than 1,000 colleagues from across the Bank have been named on TD patents so far, inventing solutions related to artificial intelligence, data and analytics, digital and mobile banking, cybersecurity, and more.
What makes a patent?
A patent can be part of an approach to safeguard your invention. To be eligible for a patent, an invention must be novel, useful, and non-obvious.
In Canada, a granted patent is valid for 20 years from the filing date.
One of the first patents for the electric lightbulb was filed for and granted in Canada in 1874. The Rubik’s Cube was patented in Hungary in 1975.
But the patent filing itself is usually the last step on a long, winding journey of thinking, innovating, experimenting, and inventing.
For D'Agostino, it's a journey of solving problems for people – TD customers and colleagues – and ultimately improving their experiences.
Sometimes D'Agostino starts by simply asking his colleagues what can be improved in the systems they use.
He'll then break down the somewhat nebulous problems he hears about into smaller, more manageable pieces so he can "chip away at them."
"From there I'll discover opportunities to remove friction," he said. "But sometimes I get stuck, so I'll take a walk or go to the gym and leave the problem there, before coming back to it with a fresh mind."
He also looks to other industries – sometimes less obvious ones – like the life sciences or the retail sector to get ideas about how to solve the problem he's working on.
In the case of TD Omni Dial, it's about facilitating smoother, faster experiences, D'Agostino said. A customer might get stuck while trying to open a Tax Free Savings Account.
Thanks to the patented technology of TD Omni Dial, a Bank representative on the phone can see that's what the customer is working on and immediately start working toward a resolution together.
TD Omni Dial, which is available in Canada and the U.S., also helps move information over to different representatives if a customer calls the incorrect help line and needs to be transferred, he said.
"The customer doesn't have to explain herself to a new person, all over again," he said.
Room to think and space to grow
D'Agostino credits his success in innovating to the space and encouragement he gets from his managers to solve problems.
"I've been fortunate because I've had a lot of room to innovate thanks to great managers," he said.
"They show me a broad set of challenges in the organization. And I have the freedom to go and look for different ways of solving these problems.”
Companies, not just financial institutions, must innovate, or they risk falling behind or disappearing altogether, D'Agostino said.
D'Agostino's ability to embrace and explore uncertainty is what helps him invent, said Josh Death, Vice President, Intellectual Property and Ideation, at TD.
"He will persevere with his vision and energy. He has the drive to bring his vision to life and ultimately, get support and buy-in," he said.
An innovation must be novel to be patented, Death said, but it doesn't have to be huge or life-changing – an incorrect belief that can sometimes hold back would-be innovators from speaking up about their ideas.
"It's been an exercise for us at the Bank to get colleagues to come forward and say, "hey, I think maybe this is an invention.””