Workforce Management (WFM) At the Center of BFSI Contact Centers!

Most contact centers do not know their customers in-depth. This is especially important in a BFSI scenario because we discuss high-value customers.

Let us look at some of the scenarios in a BFSI environment. Most of these scenarios are entirely avoidable, and the customer experience function can make it memorable for customers who reach out to them.

Scenario 1

I am a privileged customer of my bank, and I have been banking with them for the past 17 years. I have availed almost all their products – savings, fixed deposits, trading, loans, and credit cards. When I call their customer care, I expect them to know my history and answer me in a few rings. However, I am made to wait in line for 15 minutes before I get connected.

Besides, I am charged nine bucks per minute of my calling time because I was calling a special number.

Scenario 2

I have a medical insurance for the past 27 years, and I never claimed anything until two months ago. Two months ago, I had to admit my mother to a hospital and was told that I could opt for cashless insurance. So, I go there and get a quote for the treatment from the hospital, and I submit them to my insurance company for pre-approval. They come back to me stating that 30% of the quoted amount is pre-approved, and the rest is subject to approval at a later point when the insurance guys visit the hospital.

Then I had to write a few emails to get the pre-approval amount increased to 80% from the earlier 30%.

Scenario 3

I have been a credit card user of my bank for the past 12 years, and I have been regular with my payments. In all of these 12 years, I missed the payment due date last month as I was traveling. So, they levied a fine for late payment on my bill this month. When I called them up to inquire about it, the agent mentioned that the penalty would have to be paid because I paid the due late last month.

Then I had to write a couple of mails to get the fine waived.

How Do I Avoid These Scenarios?

There is specific housekeeping that every contact center should follow. They can be summarized thus:

1. You need to have a single view of your customers irrespective of the channels they try to reach you. This way, you know who is calling, their relationship with you, and what could be their query, and provide the best possible agent to address their queries.
2. Prioritizing privileged and high-value customers in addressing queries, for they bring 80% of the revenues for your organization
3. Automating all transactional queries using a self-service platform would free up your agents’ time to address complex queries.

Bank Workforce Management

It boils down to having a workforce management solution to address your customers’ needs proactively.

You need to have the right number of agents available at the right time, handling the right queries. This would allow you to manage the forecasted volume of incoming calls at the desired service level with quality.

Let Us Look at Scenario 1

I am calling from my registered phone number, and the contact center knows that I am a privileged customer. So, the call should be routed to an agent within the first few rings, and I may be spared the burden of paying an inflated amount of nine bucks per minute to have the call. It should be routed to the right agent who would most likely have knowledge on all the products that I use. 

Let Us Look at Scenario 2

You’d expect the appraiser to have a conversation with the hospital and come up with a logical approval of the claim instead of a standard 30%. Again, it should be assigned to an appraiser who has the right skills to make a call on the claim. 

Let Us Look at Scenario 3

In this case, I should have been assigned an agent who understood me as a customer. They would have the authority to waive the penalty levied on the call itself instead of me sending multiple emails.

You can also check our article on: Chatbots in banking industry.

The solutions to all the challenges in the mentioned scenarios lie with having the right workforce management solution, which would assign the appropriate agents with authority to address the customer queries.

Workforce Management gains importance when you are talking about high-value banking customers. You don’t want them to move their business to a competitor, would you?