Deploying Unified Communication Strategy in Banks - Tata Tele Business Services

Deploying Unified Communication Strategy in Banks to Drive Business

The financial services sector has been changing. Traditionally known to be slow at technology adoption, the industry has now started embracing IT solutions that help it to serve its customers better, allow its employees to access crucial information, and also keep the organisation’s data secure.

While the overall security of banks’ data can be optimised with a unified threat management plan, a unified communication (UC) strategy integrates the business communication channels that allow their customers to interact with them.

Top Benefits of Unified Communications for the Banking and Financial Sector

By unifying their communications, banks reap benefits on both sides of their service:

To Clients

For bank customers, a UC system delivers a seamless and consistent experience, helping them to complete transactions such as fund transfer, withdrawal, deposits and bill payments via a channel of their choice. The personal banking systems remain available to them even after official business hours and on public holidays. 

UC also allows customers to effortlessly connect with bank representatives through emails, instant messages, SMSs and phone calls for real-time information on their accounts. Its single number reach enables customers to contact the representatives even if they are away from their desks.

To Employees

At the other end, by implementing a UC strategy, a bank can add more flexibility to its operations and enable its employees to work from anywhere while having access to resources critical to the performance of their duties. As an example, the staff can leverage mobile enablement for off-premise banking at different locations or community events. By integrating instant messaging apps, conference calling, multichannel email, chat, phone, fax, and other communication media, it helps them boosts their productivity. It also helps them make quicker decisions and makes efficiency a key component of the organisation’s culture.

The integrations of UC elements with CRM, ERP and call accounting applications enhance the efficacy of business processes by enabling service associates and tellers to check account histories and transaction data quickly. This helps in the better utility of business intelligence tools. With a UC system, the bank can also make its network more secure and monitor it comprehensively.

Lastly, the compliance regulations that govern the banking industry are sustained by a UC platform. It can record and store all communications with customers, and retrieve them as and when required for resolution of escalated disputes.

Steps to Build and Deploy the Unified Communications Strategy

A systematic deployment of Unified Communications setup can be broadly divided into the following stages:

Step 1                                             

When banks and non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) integrate their communication apps and software onto an integrated platform, their existing network may not be able to support the combined performance efficiently.

Security is an essential ingredient of networks for UC. Practically every document used by the finance industry encloses sensitive information on customers’ accounts, transactions and financial agreements between the organisation and customers/RBI/government.

Besides being secure, the network should also be scalable and fast enough to support apps that need large bandwidth, such as those involving voice and video.

An MPLS virtual private network (VPN) fulfils all these conditions. It not only comprises a smart application-based routing for efficient performance but is also a comprehensively managed network that the bank can monitor from router to switch to core. MPLS VPN is a highly secure network for UC and does not require any additional physical infrastructure to function when the organisation scales up. Consequently, it helps to eliminate the purchases of expensive devices and the complications that come with their configuring,

Step 2

Choosing the right communication tools is the next stage of deploying a UC solution. Exchange of information between a bank and its customers, other bank branches and vendors is a part of regular operations. The parties on either side need to have lucid conversations across a secure connection.

A cloud-based communication solution, such as VoIP, offers multiple features to promote clear and secure communications between banks and other parties. It enables the bank’s employees to communicate through different devices, including softphones that can be integrated with CRM systems and customised as per their roles and designations.

Video conferencing capabilities are additional assets that make the UC system more valuable. Banks can leverage them for more personalised interactions between their representatives and customers. When they use such channels to obtain information or discuss financial planning, clients can see the reactions and facial expressions of people on the other side. Such interaction reassures them further about the sincerity of recommendations and messages being conveyed.

Step 3

Another practical UC tool that banks can use internally to share spreadsheets, documents, web content and other data across their branches is a cloud-based document management system. It helps to maintain consistency in exchanging information used for various processes and contributes to time and money savings by eliminating travel costs.

To conclude, when customers’ needs change, the organisation is also expected to move with them. By delivering an integrated banking experience through cloud-model UC applications, banks can maintain their competitiveness and improve their growth prospects. It accelerates their digital drive while also contributing to cost savings.

Tata Tele Business Services has developed a distributed architecture for Unified Communications that makes it simple to deploy and integrate multiple tools for seamless collaboration and teamwork.

To know more about our UC solution, contact us at 1800-266-1515.