A recent article in Financial Brand predicted that video banking will be subject to continued major growth. Using video conferencing for face-to-face customer contact offers bankers multiple opportunities to increase customer loyalty and revenue, offer personalized digital services, increase employee efficiency, and create additional flexibility for customers and employees. Below, we detail some of the benefits of video banking.

State-of-the-Art Communication
You know the old saying, “Everybody else is doing it”? In this case, it’s actually true. According to a McKinsey report from this year, there will be four to five times as many remote workers after the Covid 19 pandemic as before. For businesses around the world, video conferencing is central to the work of millions of people. While this technology was once a “nice to have,” it is now a mission-critical part of every major company’s IT, and employees of all types, as well as partners and customers, are now using it. To keep your business relevant and competitive, you need a high-quality, accessible video solution for every part of your business.

Video communications enable a productive hybrid or geographically dispersed workforce
Post-pandemic, some companies will restructure their organizations to create a “hybrid workforce” that allows office and remote workers to become one cohesive team. A hybrid workforce requires encouraging flexible work practices and a new mindset from leaders. If your company is planning a similar approach, video conferencing is an important element to your communication and collaboration strategy. It’s not enough to just have video communications. It needs to be designed and deployed in a way that makes participating in and using video conferencing easy and seamless. Interoperability and one-touch connectivity capabilities enable employees to quickly participate in internal and external meetings from any device, browser, or video conferencing platform, whether it’s video conferencing systems in the office or a laptop at the kitchen table.

Cost and time savings through greater availability.
Running a branch office is expensive and accounts for half of some banks’ operating costs, according to McKinsey. A combination of face-to-face meetings and video meetings, both internally and with customers, saves on travel and office expenses, as well as employee costs, staffing expenses and operating costs.

Video meetings save time and reduce or eliminate the need for bank employees to commute to work, which can result in shorter wait times for customers. They can also make interactions with customers more consistent and predictable, with fewer potential disruptions from outside sources, such as local or road traffic. In addition, the diversification of products and services in the financial sector has resulted in increased specialization.

Choosing a fully interoperable video solution can also provide savings in IT costs for video conferencing infrastructure. Interoperability solutions from our partner Pexip, for example, allow organizations to easily use and conduct meetings on all popular video conferencing platforms, such as Microsoft Teams and Google Meet, using existing hardware in the office. Leveraging and extending the useful life of legacy equipment is both cost-saving and sustainable.

Engagement fosters loyalty
Video meetings can be a powerful tool to drive customer engagement, loyalty and maintain customer relationships. Because of the diverse competition in today’s financial services industry, many companies find it difficult to attract and retain customers. Successful engagement means improving brand perception and finding ways to keep customers interested and excited about the company’s services, employees, products.

While most digital services are fast and convenient, this can quickly make customers feel anonymous, and companies have a harder time personalizing their experience. By using video conferencing, customers can still communicate at their convenience, but your team can take advantage of face-to-face communication to nurture relationships to build loyalty and retention, and ultimately increase sales.

Video communication also enables a more consistent customer journey. By leveraging “face-to-face” long-distance calls, customers can retain their preferred advisor, regardless of where they live or work. Using video communications also allows your business to better track customer interactions using digital metrics, which can help you improve your customer interaction and retention strategies.

Video banking offers opportunities to increase sales
As described above, video communication saves time, which speeds up services and response times, as well as negotiations, conversations, sales cycles and conversions. At one bank using our partner Pexip, in some cases sales closings increased by more than 23%, following the introduction of video banking This was attributed to a high-value product line within the bank: Mortgages.

Video conferencing can shorten sales cycles, often a face-to-face meeting during the week is not possible due to work – but a video meeting is. Overall, the convenience of video communication can lead to better customer retention, stronger loyalty, and increased sales potential for the bank’s products.

Using video communications for select high-value products can give your employees the ability to engage and convert more customers in less time, which can lead to higher sales at a faster pace.

Streamlining workflows
Today, workers can become overwhelmed with digital tools. That’s why it’s important for organizations to implement technology that unifies all tools and workflows into one seamless solution. Opting for an interoperable video solution that easily integrates with existing tools and systems will make employees’ day-to-day work more organized, efficient and productive.

In addition, there are situations where the customer journey requires handoffs between colleagues, depending on specialization, seniority or expertise. This process can be simplified through the use of video conferencing. Key staff, who often specialize in a product line or have an established relationship with specific customers, can thus be available at more than one branch at a time. Video banking can also streamline the customer care process across the entire customer journey, and customers can be retained whether they move or change jobs. In addition, video communications can enable relationship building with new customers who would otherwise be unreachable due to location or other factors. Features such as content sharing allow consultants to share presentations and documents that can support cross-selling, upselling and customization.

Attracting talent and improving workforce flexibility and satisfaction.
For financial services and all other industries, recruiting is an ongoing, continuous process that requires targeted communication. Video communication can be an important tool in this process for your HR team, allowing them to reach, hire and manage employees without the need for a face-to-face meeting. In addition, using video communication for recruiting can be a gateway to a more diverse workforce, giving your company an edge in innovation and growth. Remote work options can also increase the cultural adaptability of employees and help you build, onboard and support a diverse and optimized team for your department or branch.

A more flexible workplace can also reduce turnover. Lower employee turnover can lead to lower costs associated with onboarding and training staff. In addition, more experienced employees are often in a better position to generate higher revenue.