Customer experience is critical in every industry, but never more crucially than in the finance sector. Naturally, members want to know their economic health is in good hands — which means every financial institution needs a CX platform that enables personalised member experiences.
This can be challenging. Organisations must invest in solutions that address multiple elements of the customer journey simultaneously. Few business solutions are equipped for this challenge — but cloud technology offers promising solutions.
Fully integrated customer experience for finance
Financial service organisations bring unique challenges and considerations to customer engagement. Depending on the specific banking services in question, a customer’s retirement, life savings, homeownership or investments could be at stake. As a result, fast and accurate responses are the epitome of a successful customer experience in finance.
Of course, that’s often easier said than done. Contact centres are the mission control dealing with these industry-specific challenges as well as issues with operational efficiencies, workforce management, customer loyalty and high-quality service in general. That’s why your contact centre must be equipped to address the increasing online demand of banking customers.
Here are some reasons why your organisation should consider moving to a cloud-based contact centre.
Streamline service delivery
Customer service has taken many forms over the years from the branch, to the ATM to the mobile app. As financial institutions pivot to answer increasingly digitised demands, there comes a need for organisations to review existing technology and delivery platforms. As the stack gets more complex, comes to end-of-life or stumbles on integrating across channels, it all becomes impossible. A cloud-based contact centre can streamline your service delivery and more effectively address customer needs by eliminating multiple platforms and upgrading capability with a simple, more cost-effective solution.
Fluid conversations
As demand for digital banking increases, so too does the customer expectation for real-time personalisation of services. Cloud technology enables you to delight customers with rich, personalised and memorable experiences. It enables seamless customer conversations across digital and voice channels. For example, a customer wishing to apply for an online bank loan who runs into trouble whilst on your website can start a live chat with an agent. If required, the live chat can seamlessly be transferred to a mobile phone call. All in one engagement. No callbacks. No transfer of agents.
Seamless experiences
Today, the financial services industry exists online, on mobile, on social media and within physical buildings. This omnichannel customer experience must be matched by synonymous customer support — otherwise, inconsistent service across platforms or touchpoints will lead to a decrease in customer loyalty. Cloud technology enables an organisation to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to integrate their human and digital channels and create a customer relationship.
Reduction in cost to serve
The global pandemic has done nothing but add more pressure to the bottom line. Financial institutions around the globe are concurrently dealing with digitalisation issues whilst striving to reduce internal costs and headcount. A cloud-based contact centre can significantly help in both these respects by reducing costs and improving return on investment (ROI) .
Although these challenges represent a significant issue for customer experience in finance, they are far from hopeless. Contact centres have a simple solution: Cloud Contact Centre Technology.
The role of Cloud Contact Centre Technology
Cloud Contact Centre (CCC) solutions can deliver measurable improvements in customer revenue, operational costs, and customer journey management, among other metrics. Additionally Cloud Contact Centres can be quickly implemented, are scalable on demand and can drive sales by increasing services available to your customers.
The role of the CCC is to make vital functions easier and more streamlined for your business, which, in turn, improves operational efficiency and makes customer experience effortless. This is the key to overcoming the above challenges and more: approaching contact centres holistically, rather than one element at a time.
Cloud-based contact centres are also more strongly positioned to address security concerns without sacrificing efficiency. Because cloud technology has the benefit of digitised security solutions like fraud detection, each built into the software itself, the customer experience won’t be impacted by these necessary elements.
Benefits of a Cloud Contact Centre solutions
For every business solution, there exists a vital question: “Is it worth making the change?” Besides overcoming the inherent risks of technological stagnancy, CCC comes with a long list of benefits that make it well worth the investment.
Efficiency
Cloud-based technology puts real-time, contextual data and analytics at your fingertips. Helping solve workflow issues and removing internal silos, cloud solutions allow contact centres to run more smoothly and confidently. This, in turn, allows for quicker response times and higher-quality interactions, which positively impacts the customer journey.
Reduce costs
Contact centres, especially those designed to meet the high demand for financial services, can be expensive to operate. Cloud contact centre technology eliminates some of these operational costs by reducing headcount and automating workflow processes that were traditionally fulfilled by humans.
Integrated channels
An omnichannel customer experience is only possible if every touchpoint is integrated seamlessly. CCC makes this possible for financial contact centres with the use of AI technology to capture, translate and help the organisation decipher the best course of action. Customised dashboards flag agent coaching needs, gaps in training effectiveness and regulatory compliance risks. The resulting improvements in precision, speed and functionality help personalise the customer experience and will help drive customer loyalty.
Compliance
First call resolution and call handling times are easily managed in a cloud-based contact centre. Cloud contact centre technology enables your organisation to monitor every customer interaction. AI technology provides insights for compliance and training purposes, collecting customer feedback at every touchpoint before they turn to social media or regulators.
How to deploy Cloud Contact Centre solutions
Once you’ve decided a cloud-based contact centre is your organisation’s next step, you’ll need to create a plan for implementation. Here are a few tips to help you deploy cloud solutions quickly and effectively.
The business case
Create a business case that aligns with your technology strategy, operational processes and organisational structure to achieve business goals. These goals should align with your overall vision for customer experience and must reflect your brand’s values — however, they should also be realistic. Make sure your expectations for cloud solutions set you up for success.
Prepare your members
A vital part of the customer journey is your responsibility for maintaining awareness of how processes appear from a consumer’s perspective. If the deployment of cloud technology could cause temporary downtime or require any action on a customer’s part, it’s important to communicate this to anyone who uses your touchpoints or channels.
Integrate gradually
It isn’t necessary to change your contact centre processes all at once. Cloud-based solutions can be integrated gradually, giving financial services representatives and customers a chance to adapt to changes.
Adapt
There’s another benefit to gradual integration: the ability to integrate CCC with your existing internal platforms such as your CRM. If you find that a certain approach or element doesn’t positively impact the customer journey, you have the flexibility to change your approach. Because cloud solutions are so heavily based on technology and digital processes, you won’t need to buy new hardware or invest in long-term learning curves every time you pivot.
Conclusion
As customer behaviour continues to embrace online financial management and banking services so too must your organisation. The customer journey can be simplified and improved through cloud contact centre technology. Let your organisation create a full-featured, state-of-the-art multichannel contact centre today.
For help moving your contact centre to the cloud or to learn more, contact us today.