More than ever, financial services institutions are seeking to contain costs. A recent survey of IT leaders conducted by Frost & Sullivan and GoTo, a top provider of unified communication solutions, reveals that improving operational efficiencies is among their top three focuses for 2023 and 46% of businesses are planning to make cost savings in light of current economic uncertainty. 

Yet while financial and insurance firms are concerned with the bottom line, they are also focused on the cost of customer support. Either way, the goal for both remains the same: low-cost, high-efficiency service. To get there, organizations must face some hard questions: How can we run more efficiently and resolve issues in a timely fashion? How can we ensure agent performance, especially in this remote and/or hybrid environment, and ensure customer satisfaction?

Those tasks are further challenged by the fact that many enterprises have separate deployments of remote support tools. Different departments and divisions may have their own set of tools and in some cases, different tools for customer and internal support. The result—more people have more to manage, including vendor management, renewal dates, and costs.

How concerned are financial institutions about cost consolidation? They’re very uneasy. The same study finds that over 80% of respondents consider consolidating solutions a top priority. In fact, 93% already have their consolidated efforts completed, planned, or in progress. The main reasons for tool/solution consolidation are employee productivity (50%), easier to manage for IT team (49%) and cost savings (30%). Clearly, cost consolidation through IT consolidation is needed and much in demand. How can that be achieved?

4 ways to save

Rescue offers four ways to help improve operational efficiencies and cost-effectiveness within the financial space.

1. Measure your help desk performance.

Just how well are your help desk and agents performing? With robust reporting, you can get granular and report back to the business—and encourage teams to be more accountable. For example, Rescue’s enterprise-grade remote IT support provides everything you need to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of your help desk.

The Command Center lets you generate live reports of technician statistics and activity, as well as user satisfaction levels based on performance metrics. You can also record sessions, and view history and notes from previous sessions. For even greater efficiency, you can send the right problems to specific technician groups with predefined support channels. 

2. Speed up resolutions

Time is money. Costs can also be reduced by expediting average handle time (AHT) and first call resolutions (FCR). How? Tech collaboration and session transfer allow teams to work with each other securely and more efficiently, solving issues in a timely fashion.

Time savings can be realized by integrating all the tools you rely on every day. Rescue’s extensive partner network, out-of-the-box integrations and open APIs, let you easily integrate customer engagement and support systems. By using integrations, Rescue can work alongside existing ecosystems and tools currently in place, such as CRM tools (Salesforce) and FiServ tools like Alchemy or Finastra. Consider this: by integrating your CRM, you go directly into a support session from a ticket, all in one place, versus through multiple tools. As an added benefit, integrations are included in Rescue and ready for plug in. By using APIs, you can build your own integrations for any tools that Rescue doesn’t integrate with. For example, you can use an API to configure Rescue to whatever workflow you like, such as choosing where your session data is stored outside of Rescue.

3. Use one tool for all support use cases.

Often, financial institutions have several remote support accounts across the enterprise. Which tools are currently in use? What can be consolidated? It’s recommended that you survey your company to ascertain this data. While you might know about tools in IT’s purview, these tools may also be used in Shadow IT cases not owned by IT itself. What’s more, other teams may be using remote support tools outside of IT.

Rescue can be used for both internal IT and external customer support. It also allows for setting up different groups of technicians so that different administrators can easily manage them. Beyond consolidating your remote support tools, Rescue also gives IT the ability to regulate Shadow IT tools like QuickBooks, by creating and assigning permissions for other administrators.

4. Ensure your one tool can support anything.

Mobile support is no longer a nice-to-have, but a must-have in today’s financial space. Everyone works on the go, from financial advisors to bankers and insurance brokers—and your customers. While your tool may support PC and Mac desktops and laptops, does it support mobile devices? You can remote into a customer’s device to help them  on the go.

Rescue goes even further to help expedite support with Remote Live Lens, a remote camera sharing solution that lets you troubleshoot physical devices such as ATMs and teller machines as well as handle more claims issues remotely. You no longer have to send an agent onsite—simply use remote camera sharing to save.

Cost consolidation is all about efficiency and that one tool that can provide support—on premises, remotely, and on all devices—a solution that unifies with the same vendor for multiple use cases. Rescue answers that call for financial services. See for yourself.