Home » Posts tagged 'financial management'

Tag: financial management

5 Ways to Earn Trust in the Financial Services Industry

11th June 2020 Tips

Why is it important for a finance company to earn its customers’ trust? So that they see the value in your company and return. Additionally, returning customers hold the ability to bring new customers to your company. So, what can you do to earn trust for your finance company?

Finance Companies: Top Ways to Earn Trust

There are a few different ways of earning customer trust and respect. These range from improving the way your business and its employees interact with clients to using technology and marketing to your benefit. Here we look at 5 practical ways to earn trust in the financial services industry.

1. Value and Focus on Customer Interaction

This should come as a given. The best way to retain customers and earn their trust is by giving them a reason to trust your company and its services. Care for your clients. Focus on ways to improve client relations and increase positive experiences. Don’t let technology replace human interaction. At the end of the day, customers trust humans more than automated services. Make sure that clients and prospects reaching out through email and phone receive the same (or similar) treatment as they would in a face-to-face meeting.

2. Improve Transparency and Credibility

The best way to earn trust with current customers is by being forthright and transparent with them. Gaining new customers is more expensive than retaining existing ones. And therefore, your finance company should focus on customer satisfaction and retention. In other words, what can you do to provide honest, ethical, and good customer support?

Avoid hidden agendas and surprises in payments and billings. Run through your terms and conditions with them in detail. Explain early termination fees and other fees they should be aware of. Help them understand ways they can avoid damages and unnecessary payments.

By doing so, you will be creating a reputation for your company as one that provides honest work and actually cares for their customers’ concerns and benefits. By informing your customers and clients, the more they understand and value your work, and the more they trust your services. This further helps build credibility and trust.

As your financial services firm builds credibility with customers, it’s important to be in compliance with local and international regulations. Recent laws like MiFID II require all VoIP calls to be recorded. Penalization is among the worst things that could happen to a new financial services business.

3. Take Advantage of Digital Advancements

Any finance company that is not using digital and technological advancements is behind in the game. These advancements can help make processes easier and bring your services to your customers’ fingertips. For example, Positivly combines the principles of positive psychology with digital advancements in modern wealth management to create a stronger connection and build trust.

There are many other ways that financial services companies can incorporate digital advancements to build trust. Here are a few:

  • Optimize your website for smartphones
  • Allow for better digital payment methods: mobile payments or payments, renewals, and account verification through an automated IVR system
  • Create an easy-to-navigate app with helpful and informative resources
  • Use a PSP to accurately and securely accept payments
  • Use the latest cybersecurity to protect your clients and their information from fraud

4. Manage Reputation and Demonstrate Expertise Through Marketing Resources

Market creatively and for the benefit of your target audience. Your marketing strategies can determine how the public views your finance company and its reputation and credibility. Therefore, this is a good way to demonstrate your expertise and good customer service practices.

Produce informative and educational content on your website and optimize it for search engine results. Use social media to highlight important financial advice and information and connect with younger audiences. Generate newsletters with current news and promotions rewarding existing customers. Include reviews and testimonials.

Showing how your company conducts its business and that your employees are experienced and know what they are doing can help earn trust. Use marketing strategies to manage your reputation and improve the way customers view your services

5. Make Your Business Accessible

Lastly, being a financial services company, your company must remain accessible. A well-functioning and reliable business phone service can help you stay connected. Open multichannel communication such as phone, email, live chat, social media, and SMS (instant messaging).

You may even consider getting a toll free number so that prospects and customers can call your office for free. Additionally, if you get virtual business numbers with call forwarding, then you can have calls forwarded to different offices or lines.

Global Call Forwarding can help you set up a reliable business phone system with premium communication features that help in improving customer relations. To learn more, call us at 1 (888) 908 6171.

Set up the Perfect IVR System for Your Finance Company

11th March 2020 Tips

Improve sales, manage call volume, help customers self-assist by integrating an interactive voice response or IVR system within your office communication system. Enhance customer relations by choosing the right tools and services for your finance company.

Interactive Voice Response (IVR): A Financial Communication Solution

First, what is an IVR system? Interactive Voice Response is an automated response system that answers incoming calls and directs callers. It does so by presenting callers with pre-recorded menus and options to assist them in completing a task or reaching the right employee.

Most businesses incorporate IVR into their office phone system to maintain a professional image and they use automation to manage call volumes. Customers are always calling businesses to access information or resolve concerns. (Read about important facts regarding business phone calls here.) If used effectively and creatively, this service may fulfill most of the simple and mundane tasks callers may present. This allows agents and employees to focus on more complex calls and interactions.

Cloud-based phone service providers, like Global Call Forwarding, offer this service along with other virtual communication tools like call forwarding, call recording, unlimited extensions, outbound calling, etc. And so, you can easily integrate IVR into your business phone service by choosing a reliable provider.

Setting Up Your Company’s IVR System?

Setting up your IVR system depends on what you want to provide your callers and what your cloud-based phone service provider offers. You can either have a one-level or multi-level IVR system, depending on the different tasks you want your callers to be able to complete. For example, do you want to provide self-service options such as complete payments, review active accounts or credit/debit cards, purchase histories, etc.? Additionally, international finance banks may want to distribute calls based on geographic location.

You can start by distributing calls based on language preferences where the IVR system asks callers to input 1 for English and 2 for Spanish, and so on. Then, you can set up other activities, based on the categories. For example, to:

  • Learn more about our products and services, press 1.
  • To get information about your account (payment history, account balances), press 2.
  • To verify and activate a new account or card, press 3.
  • To register a concern or complaint, press 4.
  • If your call doesn’t fall under any of the previously-mentioned reasons and you want to speak with a representative, press 5.

Then, once callers move to the next level, you can offer more specific options. For instance, if a caller presses 2, then they may encounter a menu as the following:

  • Verify your account by entering the last 5 digits of your account number.
  • Thank you for that information. Now, for account balance information, press 1, for payment history, press 2, etc.

This way, customers move along a map of menus to complete the tasks they called for. And, for the most part, they are able to complete such simple tasks like this without the help of an agent or representative. This frees your employees to take calls that present as more complicated. And furthermore, they provide your clients with refined customer service.

Why Your Finance Company Needs an IVR System

So, what are some different ways you can use IVR for financial services? Your finance company can use such a system to:

  • Greet callers and assist them while an employee is busy
  • Transfer callers to the appropriate department
  • Provide basic information about products and services
  • Help them make payments
  • Verify/authenticate account information
  • Get account balance information
  • Check payment history
  • Activate accounts
  • Allow logging of complaints
  • Offer customer service, etc.

Besides the benefits of automating certain processes and handling call volumes, an IVR system can also boost your finance company’s professional image. It helps establish your company as one that cares about its customers and offers different ways for callers to resolve their concerns or issues.

 Get IVR with Global Call Forwarding

Global Call Forwarding offers IVR with each of its plans. And so, whether you are a small business or an established finance company, you can enjoy the benefits of having an IVR system. To get this service, simply sign up for a plan on our website, globalcallforwarding.com. To learn more, feel free to call us at 1 (888) 908 6171.

Managing Your Professional Finance Company Sales Team

2nd October 2019 Tips

In this blog, we will cover various ways to manage your professional finance company sales team, including:

  • Using virtual phone numbers throughout your organization
  • Inspiring competition in your professional finance company
  • Maximizing training
  • Using a directory system as a regular part of your professional finance company

Let’s begin. 

Using Virtual Phone Numbers throughout Your Organization

Part of managing your professional finance company’s sales team is by providing them with the tools to succeed. Thanks to Global Call Forwarding, this is possible in a myriad of ways.

First, virtual phone numbers are available in a wide variety of types. These include geographic numbers, toll free numbers, vanity numbers, and more. Geographic numbers can be especially useful when assigning sales teams to specific regions and countries that are part of their territory. Because geographic virtual phone numbers are identical to “regular” phone numbers, your sales team gains the benefits of localization and authenticity in those regions. Toll free numbers, on the other hand, lend a “geographical agnosticism” to your sales team, which can be useful for fielding inbound sales calls by available staff members.

Inspiring Competition in Your Professional Finance Company

Enabling your sales team to reach strategic goals often takes invoking a competitive spirit throughout your organization. To do so, you can offer incentives to top-performing employees such as direct lines to long-term clients. This can be achieved by using a popular function of Global Call Forwarding’s virtual phone numbers called “whitelisting.” Whitelisting enables only inbound calls that have been preapproved to go through. And as many sales teams involved with a professional company know, having warm leads and repeat customers is a recipe for guaranteed commissions and further success.

Time of Day Routing for Around the Clock Service

As another example, you may have some especially motivated salesmen that want to be available 24/7 to maximize their earning capabilities. Another popular add-on for virtual phone numbers, “time of day routing,” can make this a reality. When a call is placed outside of predetermined hours, the call is routed to a different destination number. Using time of day routing, you can redirect calls to their personal cell phone number.

Managing Your Professional Finance Company Sales Team
Source: DepositPhotos.com – O#187198574 ID#27446420

Maximizing Training for New Hires

One of the biggest expenses, in terms of both time and money for a professional finance company is training staff effectively. With various regulations and company protocol to follow, many employees are left to educate themselves on how to close with clients properly. Training sales team members with “call recording,” a popular add-on from Global Call Forwarding, can help ease this process and provide clear examples of what (and what not) to do during sales calls. Like the name implies, call recording records and stores inbound/outbound calls made between staff members and clients. This can be an effective tool for training, as these calls can be referred to repeatedly to train employees uniformly.

Using a Directory System as a Regular Part of Your Professional Finance Company

At some point in time, your customers are going to want to speak with the sales rep that they’re most familiar with. Whether this is out of personal preference or by continuing a business relationship, it can be cumbersome to have customers constantly transferred to staff members’ phone lines.

To manage this more efficiently for your professional finance company, Global Call Forwarding offers a Directory PBX service. Short for Private Branch Exchange, a PBX enables you to offer direct extensions for departments and individual staff members. A PBX not only creates direct access to your sales team but also reduces the number of misdirected callers or those seeking readily-available information located in your directory (i.e. operating hours).

Virtual Phone Numbers for Your Finance Company Sales Team

As you can imagine, these are only some of the many ways that professional finance companies are using the versatility of virtual phone numbers to manage their sales teams. Be sure to learn more from the informative articles at www.globalcallforwarding.com. Subscribing is easy, and your professional finance company can begin using them within 24 hours of signup.