10 Reasons Why Your Financial Institution Needs a Modern Contact Center

What does a financial services contact center do?

A financial services contact center offers assistance to customers and prospects in understanding different products, services, and processes. A customer may reach out to a contact center of a financial service provider for queries, complaints, or concerns regarding the following:

• Status of policy/ cheque/ deposit
• Renewal of scheme or policy
• Application for loans
• Tracking the status of loan application
• Theft or misplacement of debit or credit card
• Activation of credit or debit card
• Information related to credit cards such as available limit, credit limit, used credit, annual fees, etc.
• New services or products introduced recently
• Blocking debit or credit card
• Current purchase and refinancing rates in case of a mortgage, etc.

Contact centers act as a channel of communication between the financial service provider and its clients or potential clients. It is crucial for aiding clients in their journey of investment, banking, or lending through modernized financial services contact center technology.

10 Noteworthy Reasons to Upgrade your Financial Contact Center

Financial services contact centers are becoming increasingly cloud-based and incorporating other features to improve customer service. But why has it become so important now?

#1. Change in behavior pattern

The worldwide spread of coronavirus in 2020 led to a global healthcare crisis. The lockdowns and government restrictions forced businesses to close down their physical contact centers and give employees the liberty to work from home. As a result, business operations were disrupted. Businesses that switched to cloud contact center technology were favored by customers as they continued to serve them in this time of uncertainty.

Today, business operations are getting back on track again. However, there is a significant change in the behavior patterns of both employees as well as customers. While employees demand greater flexibility, customer demand enhances convenience and accessibility.

#2. Advanced functionality

According to a survey, 58% of respondents admitted that customer service expectations have heightened compared to the pre-covid era.. Customers are demanding faster and more accurate resolution when contacting a business. Therefore, it is essential for financial service providers to adopt a contact center solution that offers advanced features.

Call routing, auto attendant, and call back scheduling are some of the advanced functionalities that have become mandatory features for today’s financial services contact center solution.

#3. Need for personalization

Financial service is a complex topic for common people. Modern customers understand that ‘one size does not fit all’. Therefore, they always look for brands that realize their requirements and recommend products and services accordingly. A Deloitte survey infers that customers demand high-touch interaction for making purchase decisions on complex products and financial advice.

Financial services contact center technology must be modernized enough to fulfill this demand. CRM integration along with data analytics helps agents to provide personalized financial services that actually add value to the customer’s financial goals.

#4. Demand for an omnichannel experience

Customer contact channels have changed over the last few years, with customers using email, live chat, social media messages, etc. to gain information from a business. They expect consistent customer service experience across all channels. Contact center solutions must offer omni channel communication in order to meet customer expectations.

By integrating all channels into a unified platform, omnichannel communication ensures a seamless customer experience. According to a Forrester report, 62% of enterprises believe that they will fail to achieve marketing results if they do not adopt social media customer service technology. The flexibility offered by omnichannel communication is therefore an essential component of contact center solutions.

#5. Ease of scalability

Most businesses were forced to scale back their contact center services when the pandemic struck. Some businesses had to bleed money as their contact center solution provider/ conventional customer service provider did not offer the flexibility to scale down. A scalable contact center software is therefore essential for businesses to adopt along the way.

When financial service providers experience fluctuations in call volumes, it is important to strike a balance between supply and demand. New-age contact center technology simplifies the process of adding and removing users with minimal effort. Furthermore, cloud-based contact center solutions eliminate the need for on-premise infrastructure. The flexibility of such solutions also allows one to add or remove features as needed.

#6. Shift to remote and hybrid work model

In recent years, hybrid and remote models have become the norm rather than the exception. Cloud contact center technology ensures seamless communication between employees, not just within the workplace, but also from anywhere in the world.

Employees can execute their daily tasks from anywhere if provided with the right tools that support current work models. In today’s financial services contact centers, cloud technology integrates mobile and flexible features without compromising productivity.

To ensure business continuity, every business will have to adopt this future-proof solution sooner or later. There are a number of benefits to a hybrid work environment that make it the right choice for the future workplace.

• Provides remote and on-site work environments
• Extends the hours of operation
• Expands access to global talent
• Employees can enjoy a proper work-life balance

Businesses must equip their contact centers with modern tech features such as call forwarding, conferencing, document and file sharing in order to adapt to the hybrid work model.

#7. Implementing self-service capabilities

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