New statistics reveal how financial services contact centers are handling remote workforces

There’s no question that 2020 ushered in a dizzyingly fast pivot to remote work for many companies. We wanted to assess the impact of this shift on contact center operations—especially for leaders working within financial services. A highly regulated industry, financial services contact centers must protect customer data and eliminate the risk of fraud. Compliance is crucial, but not without challenges in a remote environment. 

We surveyed 251 U.S. contact center leaders across industries to learn how they weathered these transitions and how their operations are positioned for the future. Our resulting 2021 Post-Pandemic Contact Center Report revealed by and large contact centers showed resilience throughout 2020. And financial services contact centers were no exception. Of our total respondents, 31 represented the financial services industry.

Our newly released Industry Outlook: State of the Financial Services Contact Center report covers the challenges of remote work and highlights opportunities where financial services contact centers can more effectively leverage technology. 

We found the majority of contact centers have concerns about maintaining compliance in remote settings and struggle with visibility into their customer interactions. However, our analysis also identified that embracing tech innovation can alleviate challenges, like a dependence on manual operations.  

While we learned the challenges that came with a shift to remote operations last year, we also uncovered forward momentum among leaders in the financial services industry:

• The vast majority (90%) of contact centers are currently hiring, and most (80%) are operating remotely or on a hybrid (some remote, some in-office) model.
• Top technologies they are looking to add or replace in 2021 are artificial intelligence-powered tools, such as natural language processing (41%), and agent analytics (36%). 
• Looking ahead 3-5 years, 61% are most excited about their ability to scale processes like quality assurance through advances in AI technology.
  

Leaders are looking to the future and embracing innovation. Most are optimistic about the year ahead and plan to maintain their resilience by investing in new technologies that help leaders hit key performance indicators.

Interested in more financial services contact center trends? Access the complete report for concrete insights on future workplace plans, current technology use cases and where leaders are looking to adopt.