The influx of consumers interacting with contact centers has increased since the pandemic. What was originally quickly forced as people no longer had the option to visit physical locations, has transitioned into financial organizations implementing new technologies to keep up with growing demands and shifts in the way consumers communicate. In this evolving landscape, it has become crucial for financial organizations to adopt Customer Centric approaches while implementing new technologies to ensure exceptional customer experiences.
Yet, now that the world is in less of a crisis-mode, customer centric financial contact centers are utilizing new technology strategies to not only handle the increased call and interaction volume demands, but to provide more efficient, personalized interactions. The decision between serving more customers or serving customers well is no longer a problem.
Personalization still drives successful CX
Consider the banking experiences of generations past: my Baby-Boomer grandmother recently told me she uses a small, local bank because she’s greeted warmly, called by name and exclaims all of the staff are “so friendly.” Even my parents will habitually take physical checks into the bank to deposit, despite how many times I mention mobile deposits or [God-forbid] taking payments via Zelle.
And while Millennials and Gen Z are making up more of the population, they are less likely to enjoy the physical banking experience, but still want to feel like they’re getting those same personalized experiences with the people we trust to handle our money. Not concerned about your contact center’s digital experiences? The current largest generation group, Millennials will pay 21 percent more to do business with companies who excel at customer service. And those same millennials who are willing to pay over twenty percent for better experiences, 63 percent of them begin their customer service interactions online.
And, for extra points: Millennials are the only demographic of Americans who are more likely to tell more people when they have a good customer service experience, rather than a bad one.
Deciding which financial organization to use is one of the most personal decisions a consumer makes, and successively, banks need to provide trusting experiences with live and digital interactions, especially with growth.
Utilize the latest technology for delightful banking interactions
So, how do banks give better, more personalized and efficient service? Meet your customers where they want to interact at every channel. Utilize available technology to modernize the experiences. Here are a few modern technologies for savvy financial contact centers:
Cloud Contact Centers
Having all of the applications your financial contact center uses to operated fully in the cloud allows all of the customer data to be in one location, giving leaders the ability to analyze and act on it, including customer feedback from voice calls. Consider knowing that the script your agents are using to communicate with customers regarding fraud is leaving them angry at a time they are already frustrated. Having the ability to quickly analyze this data in the cloud, adjust the script and monitor can save you from losing those customers.
Plus, without a fully cloud-based contact center, implementing other digital technologies may be impossible or difficult to utilize.
Intelligent Routing
In older IVR (interactive voice response) systems, customers were forced to choose the route they wanted to go by selecting a phone number that would correspond to a route (i.e. push 4 for credit card department). In new IVA (Intelligent Voice Automation) systems, administrators deploy customized models that are labeled by trained algorithm, but can continuously improve over time based on the feedback of agents.
Consider a scenario where a customer is unable to use their debit card because there was a suspicious purchase. Your IVA can be proactive in asking if that is the reason for the call and direct them immediately to the correct department.
Chatbots
Chatbots are most commonly used to greet, collect background information and help solve simple problems. Although helpful for simple, self-service problem solving, they have a limited scope of programmed information they can understand and what they can say, which may lead to frustration. Organizations evaluating a full, digital transformation may see chatbots fitting into the puzzle for answering FAQ type questions and gathering the preliminary information before connecting to a live representative.
Chatbots for financial institutions are awesome because they can quickly give your customers simple information they can pull from their account like transaction history or account balance after verifying their security authorization with identifiers like social security or account number.
Embracing Cutting-Edge Tech for Customer Delight: Transforming Financial Contact Centers
Financial institutions followed the rest of the world in assisting their customers even more through their contact centers and online since the pandemic. Yet, obviously due to the nature of financial institutions, security and authorizations are priority to ensure critical information is always shared with the correct person.
The custom-centered mentality is driving digital transformation of the most efficient contact centers to support the increased influx of interactions they are having with their customers. Cutting edge technology is driving more efficient, personalized interactions. When done correctly, customers are not only satisfied, but delighted.
