Nearly 47 percent of consumers agree that once they’ve lost trust in a company, they won’t return. Trust is the cornerstone of customer relationships, especially in the financial services industry, so it’s crucial to get it right the first time.

Customer trust is built on consistent performance, transparency, and exceptional customer experiences. The latter has experienced significant changes over the last several years, requiring financial services firms to transform their customer support by providing self- and full-service options and faster, more personalized interactions. Banks, wealth management groups, and insurance firms are turning to contact center technology to address these changes.

Financial Services Customers Demand a Mix of Service Options

According to a survey from Capital One and The Decision Lab, assets under professional management grew for three consecutive years, reaching an all-time high at the end of 2021. While this may seem like great news for financial services firms, it can only be leveraged to their advantage if they deliver consistent customer experiences. But this type of experience requires a combination of self-service and human interactions.

Consumers readily embrace digital-first experiences and expect their financial services firms to do the same. In fact, a recent J.D. Power study revealed that 41 percent of all retail banking customers are digital-only. Not only are consumers happy to use intuitive self-service tools, but employees love how they improve efficiency and productivity in the workplace.

Contact center as a service (CCaaS) solutions like GoContact allow financial services firms to automate many processes, such as auto dialing and script building, while facilitating on-demand human support via phone, email, chat, or social media messages. Quick, convenient answers and personalized interactions create trust, which can help alleviate customers’ financial anxieties and increase their loyalty to the company.

Financial Services Customers Demand Speed

Eighty percent of Americans list speed of service as one of the most important aspects of the customer experience. But how can financial firms keep up with increasing call volumes while also increasing response times?

In the same way that financial services firms must balance human and automated interactions, they must also balance speed and quality of service. If not, they risk losing their customers. A recent study from Zendesk found that it only takes one bad customer service experience to ruin the experience as a whole — one-third of customers will switch to another company following one bad service interaction, and 80 percent will switch after multiple bad experiences.

Simultaneously delivering speed and quality of service can be a challenge, but contact center solutions can help by:

• Automating call flows and improving service speed, which keeps customers satisfied.
• Allowing agents to resolve problems on the first call, which reduces contacts per customer and allows agents to focus on more complex issues.
• Allowing the transition from reactive to proactive customer service and optimizing interactions using computer telephony integrations that match inbound calls to customer records.

Financial Services Customers Demand Personalization

A study from Capco revealed that 72 percent of consumers rate personalization as “highly important” in financial services. Financial service providers, wealth managers, and banks of all sizes must get up close and personal with their customers or risk losing them to competitors. In fact, a recent study from McKinsey & Company found that companies that excel in personalizing services generate 40 percent more revenue than those that don’t.

Small and mid-market financial services firms can take a personal approach by leveraging an affordable, subscription-based CCaaS solution like GoContact, which offers features such as:

• Sophisticated script-building tools to personalize each conversation.
• Advanced call routing to direct callers to the right resources.
• Integrated omnichannel visibility to allow agents to follow conversations from one channel to the next.

Give Financial Services Customers What They Want with CCaaS

In an ideal world, financial services firms would provide consumers with the mix of service options they want, the speed they need, and the personalization they desire. GoContact not only answers these demands but also provides an easy-to-afford, easy-to-deploy, easy-to-manage, and easy-to-scale solution that can grow and change to fit the needs of firms in the years to come.

Contact us to learn more about how GoContact can answer consumer service demands.