Mastering Accessibility and Security for Financial Services

Easy Access vs High Security – What do your customers want?

When it comes to choosing a financial institution, accessibility and security are top priorities for customers. In the Age of Information and with the advent of Digital Transformation - new technology replacing legacy systems at the speed of light - customers increasingly demand easy access to their financial information, 24/7/365, through their medium of choice with the highest security framework possible. For financial service providers, finding the right balance between giving your customers the easy access they demand and providing the top-tier security they expect can be a challenge.

Accessibility Is The New Status Quo

Whether you’re in the insurance, banking, investment, or debt collection industry, having 24/7 access to personal financial accounts is crucial for your customers. Long gone are the days when it was acceptable for customers to have to wait until 9am the next business day to speak to a representative, or to have to drive to a brick-and-mortar location to get the answers they need.

44% of financial service customers rarely or never visit a physical bank or financial institution, making your contact center the primary resource for customers who want to connect with a human being.¹ Regardless of the reason for their outreach, they expect a personalized, first-touch solution that requires as little of their time as possible.

How to Master Accessibility

• Speak your customer’s language: Provide access to your support team through the channels your customers prefer to differentiate your company from the competition. Provide a consistent and positive customer experience across platforms.

• Enable your agents: Integrate collaborative technologies, such as CRM platforms and contact centers to put your customer’s information right on the agent’s screen before they even pick up the phone. Your customers’ time is valuable, don’t waste it on preliminaries or asking them to explain their history with your company.

• Take advantage of technology: Implement intelligent routing capabilities for your contact center to offer your customers a first-touch solution by routing them to the best-skilled agent. Minimize the number of times your customers have to be transferred to a better-skilled agent.

Adding Security and Reliability to The Equation

New technologies have facilitated and expedited self-serve financial transactions for customers. But these new technologies also bring increased vulnerability and risks, and require the most up-to-date security. Financial services companies are a prime target for phishing scams and hackers, and roughly 40% of customers believe their financial information is not secure and at risk.¹

The average adult in America already has over 25 discrete logins (and hopefully more than 25 unique passwords), but more than half of financial service customers would be willing to add an additional password to secure their financial accounts. So how do you create a personalized customer experience while maintaining top-tier security? Updating and improving the security of your contact center is an important step to give your customers – and your company – peace of mind.

How to Balance Accessibility and Security

• Protect your customer data: Give your agents sufficient access to partially identify callers and validate their identity with minimal customer effort. Collect only the minimum amount of data needed to complete a transaction.

• Maximize your uptime: Select a contact center software that guarantees a minimum 99.99% uptime – a maximum of 4.38 minutes of downtime a month – and look for redundant data centers. Even a few minutes of downtime can cause customers to move to the competition.

• Minimize your risk: Ensure your contact center solution implements the most up-to-date advanced encryption, intrusion detection, firewalls, vulnerability management systems, and anti-virus/anti-malware software.

Streamlining accessibility and creating personalized customer experiences while maintaining top-tier security is what we do at Five9. Talk to one of our experts today and see why 2000+ customers trust Five9: 1-800-553-8159

¹ Five9, “What do Financial Service Customers Want from a Contact Center?” Five9, 2017.