Unified communication represents an incredible opportunity in an industry as fast-paced and client-focused as financial services. Companies in this landscape need to prioritise privacy and compliance while still investing in exceptional productivity, and higher levels of efficiency.
By aligning teams, technologies, and communication paths, Unified Communications can create a more compliant and effective environment for financial services business leaders. In today’s distributed environment, where financial experts can work from locations worldwide, UC is growing at an increasingly rapid pace, approaching a potential value of $293 billion by 2027.
The question is, how do you develop a business case for UC at a time when budgets are strained and business buyers are under increasing pressure? The following steps will help.
Step 1: Consider Your Evolving Team
One of the best ways to build a compelling business case for any new technology is to highlight the strains of an existing problem in your workplace. Currently, the financial sector, like many other landscapes, is moving through a period of digital transformation surrounding the workplace.
If, since the pandemic, more of your specialists have been working remotely or in a hybrid environment, there’s a good chance you’ll be reliant on the power of UC to bring these employees together. Since many financial services roles require much time spent behind a computer, there’s excellent potential for companies to embrace a more flexible, digital working environment. Already, around 99% of HR leaders expect hybrid work to be a fundamental part of tomorrow’s workplace.
With Unified Communications, you can empower team members wherever they are to share information, connect with colleagues, and work towards a fantastic customer service experience for your clients. With the right solutions, specially built for financial services groups, you can even access additional tools like mobile management services and SBCs to secure the connections of employees wherever they might be working.
Step 2: Look for Opportunities to Upgrade Compliance
The financial services industry is one of the most highly regulated sectors. Clients and companies aren’t willing to take any risks with their money. With this in mind, business leaders should be looking at UC not just as an opportunity to enhance workplace performance but also to improve security, compliance, and privacy.
With Unified Communications aligning multiple technologies within your business environment, it’s much easier to keep track of the data moving through your company. Alternatively, many different apps would place additional strain on IT leaders and security teams to keep track of potential sources of leaks and vulnerabilities.
Implementing an advanced UCaaS offering also ensures business leaders can access a more flexible cloud-based foundation for their communications technology. This can make accessing various advanced new tools for security and compliance much easier. For instance, with an integration-friendly UCaaS environment, you can implement AI tools for voice biometrics and enhanced encryption technologies. Making your team and customers more secure is easy with UC.
Step 3: Present the Potential for Enhanced Experiences
We’re living in the age of the “experience economy”, where excellent interactions are in high demand, not just among financial services customers, but agents, supervisors, and users too. With a UCaaS or UC environment, business leaders can invest more into the power of experiences.
From an agent experience or employee experience perspective, UC makes life easier for your team members by giving them access to all the tools they need in one place. This means less time spent moving between applications and fewer moments wasted when searching for information. Agents are more empowered to deliver enhanced results.
Similarly, in the financial services sector, managers and supervisors in a UC environment have more power to watch over team members and ensure they stay compliant and productive wherever they are – even in a hybrid workplace.
Customers benefit from a more aligned back-end team, rapid routing opportunities, and the better context in their conversation. UC solutions can even be connected with CCaaS offerings in today’s digital landscape to further enhance the communication experience for everyone involved.
Step 4: Implement Plans for Collecting Data
Sometimes, the best way to build a compelling business case for new technology is to demonstrate how you can prove the value of an investment over time. One great thing about today’s UCaaS and UC solutions is they can offer a range of analytics and reporting tools to help you collect valuable data. You can track everything from adoption to how employee engagement and customer satisfaction levels transform over time.
The data analytics capabilities in a UC ecosystem can also be precious when it comes to planning new implementations of technologies and solutions. You can use analytics systems to track patterns and trends in customer needs. The exact solutions can even offer insights into your employee wellbeing and satisfaction levels, so you’re less likely to deal with turnover.
Collecting data in today’s financial services environment can help you avoid the stress of replacing financial professionals in a skills-short climate. At the same time, these reports also ensure you can keep your customers happy, with everything from sentiment and intent reports to customer journey tracking.
Step 5: Look at the Potential for Innovation
Finally, a UC or UCaaS implementation for any financial service business has the power to adapt and evolve according to your needs. You might start with a simple UC environment intended to replace an old-fashioned or legacy ecosystem, then gradually update by adding more features and functionality. UC offerings can make it easy to implement new features whenever you choose.
You could consider implementing things like AI assistants and agents to support your team members and make your entire workforce more productive or look into automatic recording and transcription tools. There may also be the option to implement even more advanced solutions in the future, like XR technology so that you can bring financial meetings to your clients in-house with VR and AR.
Even if you’re not planning on investing in any particularly advanced tools yet, UCaaS ensures you have the right, flexible, and agile environment in place for future transformation.
