From Phones to Multimedia: 2021’s Shift in the Financial Industry

Communication lies at the heart of customer service – it’s often the driving factor behind turning an average customer touchpoint into a stellar experience with a business. As society becomes more interconnected with new devices and advancements in technology, interaction between consumers and businesses has dramatically changed from even five years ago.

Digital transformation (the integration of digital technologies to enhance efficiency and effectiveness in business) is repainting the portrait of customer engagement today, especially in the financial industry. Consumers now hold a strong preference for mobile communication that can take place from anywhere and at any time, and are often frustrated or take their business elsewhere when instantaneous communication with a financial institution cannot occur.

Because of the digitalization of communication, financial institutions are broadening connectivity to consumers and an industry shift towards more widely deployed multimedia contact centers in banking is occurring. Nearly every application player today is now in the telephony space — a stark change in the landscape of five to seven years ago where chat was purchased separately from telephony resources, which went to traditional vendors. Today’s trend is for financial institutions to turn to multimedia contact center solutions that meet consumer expectations for fluid omni-channel communications in the digital world.

As technology only continues to pervade the financial services sector, contact center vendors must keep the following in mind as they look ahead to the future: telephony alone is no longer enough, allegiance to traditional players is gone and security is priority.

Telephony Alone is No Longer Enough

As a result of increased usage/reliance on smartphones and mobile devices, consumer expectations now include chat options to communicate with businesses. Many organizations are now switching to cloud-based multimedia contact centers as opposed to relying on traditional enterprise systems for telephony and seeking chat as a separate module. Omni-channel solutions that have the power to seamlessly connect consumers to banking resources at every point of the conversation through a variety of media options are becoming the new standard for communication solutions.

Allegiance to Traditional Players is Long Gone

Organizations are seeking solutions that can meet a broad range of connectivity to help them meet consumer expectations. Where banking organizations held allegiance

for traditional voice players in the past, such allegiance has faded away today as a result of shifting consumer expectations. Financial institutions are now seeking out contact center vendors that can accommodate a variety of modes of communication (chat, voice, text, SMS, video, etc.) — acknowledging that today’s consumers have needs for multiple communication options and expect that conversations with an agent can easily be escalated from one medium to another (i.e. from a session that started in chat to adding video or screenshare). In terms of selecting a contact center vendor, efficiency and seamlessness is key for financial organizations today.

Security is Priority

With chat growing in popularity and a significant shift in communication now occurring on mobile devices or on the web, a financial institution’s ability to secure customer information is more critical than ever. Financial institutions are held to strict standards of security in terms of storing sensitive customer information and are held to several regulations to protect the data of their customers — payment card industry (PCI) compliance and personally identifiable information (PII) just to name a few. As cloud-based multimedia contact center solutions continue to become ubiquitous in the industry, the security of these solutions will remain top priority for financial institutions.

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LinkLive Banking is for Financial Institutions who need to securely communicate with customers, clients, employees, and business partners and want it to work in the way that we all live and work across digital and physical channels.