Although the COVID-19 pandemic is starting to be left behind, its impact will remain in other areas, such as the workplace. One of the sectors that has been most affected is Customer Services, because all the operators have changed their way of interacting with the environment, and now everything points to 2023 as a year of consolidation for these changes.

Let’s remember that, as a result of the Coronavirus, users became more dependent on telematic channels to solve their problems. For their part, companies had to adapt to incorporate teleworking into their activities, while agents had to deal with more demanding situations and a heavier workload. These trends are still on the rise three years later.

THE VALUE OF EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE

If things work well in the company and its employees are happy, it is easier for the business to go ‘from strength to strength’. And even more so in companies where customer service is essential and each operator is an ‘ambassador’ of the brand.

GREATER OMNI-CHANNELING

In the wake of the pandemic, companies have also realized that being in a single channel is not enough to be able to interact and keep in touch with their customers. We live in an interconnected world where users want a wide range of alternatives for communication (telephone, e-mail, chat, social networks, video calls, etc.); therefore, in order to compete better, it is necessary to be available on all possible fronts.

CLOUD AS THE NEW WORKSPACE

According to the consulting firm Gartner, in 2021, 30% of cloud workloads were implemented on cloud-native platforms. By 2025 the prediction is that this percentage will grow to 95 %. The Reason? The scalability of this business model and the enormous possibilities that it can particularly offer to Call Centers and Contact Centers, such as greater Return on Investment (ROI) or easy roll out of the service.

INVESTMENT IN ANALYTICS TO IMPROVE KNOWLEDGE

The more information, the more opportunities to make good decisions. Companies want to know if they are doing well, to be able to assess the campaigns they are running and to understand their customers’ decisions. And, to achieve this, they are taking advantage of technological advances that allow them to obtain metrics (KPI’s) in real time or obtain useful results in the analysis from the feelings of their own employees and their customers.

SOPHISTICATION IN THE IVR

In 2020, call centers in Spain generated 0.8% more business than in the previous year, due to the direct consequences of the pandemic. Telematic customer service was the solution for many people who were unable to manage their incidents in face-to-face contact, and now they have become more used to still doing so.

To deal with this increased pressure, telemarketing companies can rely on sophisticated Interactive Voice Response (IVR) tools. Thanks to improvements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP), the bots that answer calls can do so much more humanely than before and offload work from agents.

ADDING SELF-SERVICE TOOLS

Sometimes, the problems that customers have are easily solved and do not even require the intervention of an agent. For these cases, companies are starting to look favorably on the use of self-service tools that guide users on the right path to solve their problems. In this way, calls become the last option for cases in which they have not achieved what they were looking for, which means queues with lower call volume and shorter waiting times.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR A PERSONALIZED EXPERIENCE

Investing in Artificial Intelligence (AI) in this sector is one of the best ways to lay a solid foundation for your business. This technology has a lot of applications and many of them are  valuable for improving the customer experience, from personalized service to providing accurate responses in real time, and even predicting their behavior to anticipate problems before they happen.

 As you can see, 2023 is shaping up to be an exciting year for contact centers. With so many opportunities, this sector has enormous potential, both human and technological, to still do so successfully in the short and long term.

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Customer experience, or CX, is fast becoming the competitive differentiator in the banking industry.

Banks, and financial institutions that invest in customer experience achieve, on average, higher recommendation rates also a higher share of wallet, and are more likely to cross-sell and up-sell alternative products and services.

According to a recent Gartner study, 81% of companies compete primarily on the basis of the customer relationship, making that point a key competitive differentiator for banks. The Gartner study also reveals that the better a customer’s experience in terms of quality, the more likely they are to remain loyal to a particular brand or institution. This means that CX has the power to improve customer retention.

So, in summary, it is critical that the banking sector gets its CX strategy right.

As CX plays an growing role in a bank’s success, what will the consumer banking landscape look like in the next five years? And what emerging CX trends will we see introduced in that time?

• Products and services integrated into mobile applications to deliver personalized experiences

Customer “self-service” is one of the fastest growing CX trends in the banking industry today. Because most customers using mobile apps for a wide range of services (such as shopping, utilities, etc.), it is almost an expectation that banks will offer this service as well. The teams and associated expertise needed to create, manage and optimize such applications are not difficult for enterprise organizations to manage internally. Ensuring a personalized in-app experience that allows many customers to self-manage within their application will help to strengthen their engagement.

• The evolution of AI

Instead of waiting on the phone, customers now have the option to consult AI-enabled chatbots when faced with challenges. These chatbots process information from diferents sources, such as the bank’s knowledge base and CRM customer profiles, to respond to customer service requests. If a particular request exceeds the chatbot’s capabilities, it is automatically referred to a live service representative who can help the customer find a solution. Best of all, more and more banking applications are offering chatbot technology as a native functionality, meaning customers can quickly resolve issues from anywhere, anytime.

• The rise of digitalization

The pandemic and impending closures limited, and in some cases eliminated, customers’ ability to physically visit their banks. This fact has caused the voice channels were often overwhelmed. To deliver a great customer experience, it is critical that banks offer customers alternative digital channels as another method of customer service and support. But this is easier said than done. Deploying an integrated omnichannel communication strategy with end-to-end reporting and data is one thing, and providing the tools and support to less tech-savvy customers is another challenge that banks have yet to settle.

• Humanizing digital interactions

Offering customers a range of channels is a good first step in delivering great CX in banking. However, while many customers may be comfortable interacting with a “bot,” there will be just as many who struggle with a lack of humanization in their interactions with the bank. This is especially true when those interactions involve the exchange of sensitive information or data. Therefore, it is critical that banks find ways to soften the use of bots by giving them personalities and allowing that bot service to join the human-assisted service.

So we have the four key trends in CX that will be seen in the banking landscape in the coming years.

What is clear is that the banking industry is changing constantly and very fast, and CX is a clear differentiator for consumers when choosing the bank where will continue with.

At MST Holding, we help financial institutions deepen their connection with customers around the world. With more than 30 years of experience in the banking sector, we drive the improvement of the Customer Experience as a key factor for the growth of finance companies thanks to their own customers.

Customer experience in fintech is one of the factors that have made the difference between traditional financial services and the emerging sector of neobanks, cryptocurrencies, blockchain, etc.

Therefore, in this article we have summarized everything you need to know about fintech, its importance and how to improve the customer experience in this exponentially growing sector.

What is fintech?

Fintech is a software or technology application that is used to help companies, business owners and consumers better manage their financial transactions in more automated ways through the use of specialized algorithms used by computers and mobile devices.

The term “Fintech” combines the words financial technology, and includes any technology that is used to increase, facilitate, digitize or modify traditional financial services.

Fintech includes different sectors and industries such as education, retail banking, non-profit and fundraising, and investment management, to name a few.

Fintech platforms enable everyday tasks such as depositing checks, moving money between accounts, paying bills, or applying for financial aid.  They also encompass concepts such as peer-to-peer lending or cryptocurrency exchanges.

Advantages of providing customer experience in fintech

Financial technology (fintech) companies create new value for consumers by focusing on the customer experience through technology.

Fintech services enhance the customer experience by offering highly personalized services for which traditional banks have not yet designed a powerful solution.

Moreover Fintech companies improve the customer experience with new products, services and functionalities such as blockchain-based marketplaces, cryptocurrencies, global remittances, crowdfunding, cross-border payments and open banking.

Fintechs also complete the customer experience with upgrades to existing functionality, such as: faster payment settlement, smart contracts in trading and lending services, cross-border custody services, payment cards with increased functionality.

The fintech sector has developed new technological tools to improve the customer experience, making the traditional financial-banking model obsolete.

For example, fintechs that offer digital wallets contribute to a seamless customer experience, simplifying operations and facilitating online commerce.

1.Mobile banking

Mobile banking is an important part of the financial technology sector. In the world of personal finance, consumers are increasingly demanding easy digital access to their bank accounts, especially on a mobile phone.

Most of the big banks now offer some form of mobile banking functionality, especially with the rise of digital banks, or “Neobanks.”

Neobanks are essentially banks without physical branches, offering their customers checking, savings, payments and lending services on a completely digitized infrastructure.

5 ways to improve the fintech customer experience

Now that you know what a fintech is and the main areas it covers, it is time to learn how to improve the customer experience in this fast-developing area:

1. Listen to your customers

Get feedback from your customers about your services. You want to know how they feel, understand the problems they face and get an idea of what their priorities are.

You can do this by implementing satisfaction surveys and feedback forms, as well as analyzing customer reviews, customer conversations with your sales, support and customer success teams.

You can also evaluate support ticket trends, cancellations, social media posts that talk about your brand, and anything else you can observe to understand what your customers are looking for. You may also want to be able to perform sentiment analysis on this data.

2. Chatbots and virtual assistants

Customer onboarding is fundamental to the customer experience in finTech, as it helps new users to find themselves in the financial services ecosystem.

To realize customer onboarding, it is recommended to focus on the use of automation to answer simple questions, without missing out on human interaction to increase empathy with the customer’s needs.

Most people are not technologically or financially savvy, so it is advisable to implement different types of self-service (such as an efficient FAQ section) to automate the application knowledge process and stop people managing their money on the fly.

3. Make your UX implementation flow smooth and responsive.

People base their opinion of FinTech apps on how easy, intuitive and fast their transactions are. Therefore, the app design needs to be optimized for most devices and screen sizes.

A very important part of the customer experience in Fintechs has to do with how easy it is for your customers to use your platform. The idea is to reduce customer fatigue and create a seamless experience that is never interrupted.

4. Increase your data security

There is literally no way you can offer your customers a positive client experience program if they don’t trust you.

As a FinTech company, data security should be one of your primary concerns. In addition to ensuring the privacy and security of financial transactions and operations, you must also ensure that customer support data is well protected.

Make sure you comply with the PCI DSS (PaymentCardIndustry Data Security Standard) as well as ISO/IEC 27001:2013.

5. Commitment to omnichannel

Offering an omnichannel customer experience is essential to keep up with today’s requirements.

Your customers want to be able to contact you through whatever channel they are using at any time. You shouldn’t force them to switch channels to get in touch.

However, if they decide to get in touch through one medium and then move to another channel, you should make it possible for them to continue their interaction flawlessly across multiple channels without having to start from scratch.

Your chatbot and agents should have the context of previous conversations carried across all customer touchpoints, making their experience truly omnichannel.

Conclusion

If you would like to know more about how to improve the customer experience in the industry contact marketing@mstholding.com or through our website www.mstholding.com.

Exhibitions and congresses are back with a vengeance in Barcelona. After the MWC, the Catalan capital has hosted the third edition of the Forum of Installation Companies and New Technologies (EFINTEC), under the claim ‘Driving sustainable change’. The event, organized by the Federation of Installers’ Guilds of Catalonia, FEGiCAT, was held in Hall 1 of the Fira de Barcelona (Montjuïc exhibition center) on October 20 and 21.

This new edition of the reference event from the installation and energy sector has brought together some 8,000 professionals and 150 exhibitors.

EFINTEC’s main objectives are to professionalize the figure of the installer and generate business opportunities in the installation and energy sector. It is a key event to present the latest technological and training trends that will enable to face the energy transformation process.

In addition, the event was held at a key moment for the sector. Raúl Rodríguez, general manager of FEGiCAT, explains that “after the success of EFINTEC 2021 in which more than 6,000 professional visitors attended the event, making it a benchmark for the sector, EFINTEC 2022 has maintained the objective of strengthening and promoting business relations between exhibitors and professional visitors in a comfortable, innovative and committed to sustainability environment in which, at the same time, conferences have been offered on the latest technological developments and on the behavior and future of the sector”.

EFINTEC has once again this year opted for a face-to-face event with training meetings, workshops, lectures and presentations of products and services. This year the trade fair has gone from having a single focus in the last edition to the diversification of spaces with four main points destined to different events and which will facilitate mobility throughout the venue. EFINTEC has counted on the hall and the Forum to host 40 presentations, the recreation of an energy community and a village area.

The event has the institutional support of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Barcelona City Council. Efintec 2022 is also supported by the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, Foment del Treball, PIMEC and different associations and federations.

With more than 30 years of experience, MST Holding is specialized in HVAC sector services of Technical Support and omnichannel Customer Service in multiple languages. With high First Call Resolution ratios, we improve the customer experience thanks to our technology and our expert team in technical support, TSS and trouble ticket management, spare parts and incident tracking. We reduce costs through increased efficiency and productivity. We help our customers to improve their services.

If you want more information you can contact us at marketing@mstholding.com or through our web www.mstholding.com

Ecommerce has come to stay. As an innovative business model, it does not close the door to traditional channels such as contact centers, in the end, the telemarketing. However, even these more traditional channels have relied on new technologies to provide a better service. This is the case of multichannel call centers.

What can a multichannel call center offer to your ecommerce? And why is customer service so important in an ecommerce? We will try to answer these questions to help you understand the value of integrating a multichannel call center in your ecommerce.

What is a multichannel call center?

As e-commerce has developed, new needs have arisen to companies, with the customer at the center. By this we mean that the digital transformation of call centers has been necessary because consumers and users have needed immediate solutions to contact companies. Thus, the multichannel call center has emerged such as customer service solution with multiple benefits, especially for ecommerce.

To have a multichannel call center is to assume that there are customers who want to communicate with a company through different channels. A multichannel call center is a solution that encompasses multiple points of contact with the customer. For example, interactions by voice, by text through emails or messages, on social networks or on the web.

The advantage of having a multichannel contact center is that you can meet the increasingly complex needs of your customers. On the other hand, a multichannel call center puts the customer at the center of all operations. This means that agents serve them more efficiently, fluently and completely.

 Multichannel call center for e-commerce

If in a physical store telemarketing or call center services are already necessary to offer a complete service to customers, in an ecommerce it has become essential. The reason is that customers who buy online need a direct communication channel with the company. They need to know that there is someone behind an online store who can answer all their questions or complaints. As we explained above, the new consumer, who is looking for an omnichannel and personalized experience, requires new methods of customer service, something that only the multichannel call center can cover.

Some of the advantages of having a call center for ecommerce are: A better knowledge of the sales funnel with first-hand information, which can help us to know at what point customers abandon the purchase in order to follow the customer throughout the purchase process: from before making the order, to after-sales service.

In addition, by outsourcing the services of a multichannel call center, we can allocate the resources we use to provide this service in which we are specialists. Having ecommerce call center professionals will be an advantage over the competition. Among other things, because of the increase in the quality of customer service that it brings with it.

We know the value of good communication with customers. That is why we have specialized agents to provide the best customer service, supported by the most efficient technology to clarify any questions that may arise. Thanks to our specific software or IVR (Interactive Voice Response) with the integration of a CRM, customer contact can be increasingly personalized.

If you are thinking of outsourcing your ecommerce customer service and want a multichannel solution, please contact us at marketing@mstholding.com or through our website www.mstholding.com.

Only with Black Friday  in 2021 eCommerce sales were 18% higher than in the prior year, and small and medium companies made 28% more profit.

Online sales of at least 1.8 billion euros are expected this year. This is definetly very good news. And to prevent that the volume of work involved in the Christmas campaign does not become a headache, especially for the contact center, any advance organization that can be counted on is welcome. And at MST Holding we are already prepared to help you during those days.

1 – We start by anticipating the volume of transactions that our agents will receive, based on last year’s experience, but also taking into account the last months of this year. With these forecasts in hand, it will be easier to determine what the staff reinforcements should look like.

2 – We focus on the CX: although the end-of-year campaign is characterized by the attractive discounts, it is also a time when incidents, returns and complaints abound. For this reason, we take great care in training our agents and optimizing processes.

3 – Another useful measure we offer our customers is the option to call back, because users hate having to contact a company repeatedly and the waiting time for each call.

4 – On the other hand, for process improvement, MST Holding believes that automation is the key. The more efficient self-service options that can be offered, the more user satisfaction will increase. This in turn will result in time savings for the Contact Center.

5 – Finally, we also pay special attention to security in these last months of the year. Increasing agent training and keeping systems up to date are two fundamental steps for us in this direction.

If you want to know more about how to offer an excellent customer experience at Christmas time with MST Holding, please write to us at marketing@mstholding.com.

Customer expectations are bringing about a deep transformation of the financial sector.

Traditionally, financial institutions have had little attachment to risk; even more so after 2008’s crisis. After that, banks prioritized capital, liquidity and regulatory responsibilities more than ever, and that has remained the trend, even as the emerging fintech market has begun to gain a meaningful foothold.

But then COVID-19 came along and the epidemic became a pandemic causing an economic impact that will be a matter of debate for years to come. What is clear is that we are seeing shrinking capital and credit reserves in all sectors. As customers and small businesses seek loans and financial assistance, the phones are ringing at banks, while many employees continue to work offsite.

Several of the world’s largest financial services institutions have realized that when it comes to transformative digital players, the risk of non-adoption far outweighs the risk of adoption. Faced with this pandemic, traditional banks are looking for smart, automated solutions to reach their customers often remotely due to isolation.

Redesigning customer service centers.

No one ever thinks of call centers as a strategic point of business, but we fail to realize that this is exactly how customers see it. While every company offers a variety of channels for a customer to find it, including websites, mobile apps, etc., customer service centers are often the only place where to go when every customer need to solve a problem.

At MST Holding we are specialists in omnichannel customer care services for the financial sector with more than 30 years in the market. Our strength is based on an expert banking team together with innovation in technology, both of which are fundamental to satisfy customer needs and generate better commercial results and excellent experiences. Our banking clients achieve the highest customer loyalty and trust ratios with greater efficiency and productivity to reduce costs.

You can contact us at marketing@mstholding.com or through our website www.mstholding.com.

Customer experience (CX) management is the defining competitive differentiator in today’s banking industry, infact for good reasons: financial institutions that invest in customer experience have higher referral rates, higher share of portfolio, and are more likely to increase cross-selling of products and services to their customers.

From Consulting C3 (MST Group), we help our clients to increase profit ranges in such a demanding market as the financial one.

The challenges we have identified in the short term are as follows:

1. Focus on the human connection: Optimizing processes through digitalization puts at risk customer satisfaction in interactions with their bank. Although it is true that digital options improve the experience of a certain group of users, financial institutions should not forget the need for the human touch to positively impact customer satisfaction. The most appropriate communication channel to provide personal touch is the contact centers through which the human to human interaction is developed. During more than 30 years of experience in that sector, we have helped our clients to improve their satisfaction indicators, accompanying them in the processes of continuous improvement and to design based on a Customer Centric methodology.

• Big data in the customer experience: Customer intelligence combines technology, accumulated and ordered customer information and artificial intelligence. Information management and data interpretation is one of the greatest assets for making decisions about processes, products and communication channels to engage with customers. Customer intelligence allows financial institutions to anticipate needs and be able to predict the future behavior of their customers. From Consulting C3 (MST Group), we develop both the technology and the consulting support to guide our clients in the decision making process and in the investment of resources oriented to CX.

• Hyper-personalization: It has been noted over the years, in the Customer Experience trends, how hyper-personalization can also benefit banks. Thanks to tools like big data, the aim is to offer customers products based on their interests, through prior analysis and the use of predictive techniques. This approach makes it possible to increase the well-being of their customers. The analysis of correctly ordered and correlated data makes it possible to target each customer in a specific way. As well as to take action not only reactively but also to anticipate needs based on the socio-cultural characteristics identified. In summary, to create customized solutions that provides value for that particular client.

From Consulting C3 (MST Group), we have helped our clients to obtain important improvements in the main indicators such as NPS (Net promoter score), valuation of service excellence, loyalty, increase in turnover, cross-selling and recommendation (cost savings in marketing actions).

Consulting C3 (MST Group), provides the tools and the methodology to impact the quality indicators and the business ratios of our clients in the banking sector. This is possible through the projects of perceived quality and quality assessment issued. Hence, we give to our clients a roadmap with high impact actions verifiable in short periods of time. Finally, banking services should be geared towards improving people’s lives and, to this end, institutions should be open to active, permanent and high-value listening to their demands. Therefore, to know and understand the behavior and needs of their customers will generate, in the short and medium term, a competitive advantage in an increasingly demanding market.

The warranty period for products increases from 2 to 3 years for products sold as of January 1, 2022, and manufacturers will have to insure spare parts for their products for 10 years, and not for 5 years, as until now. This is to improve the useful life of products, by facilitating repair. This is good news for consumers.

Extending the availability of spare parts to 10 years is in line with the European Consumer Agenda and will facilitate the ecological transition to more sustainable consumption.

More warranty, more rights

All consumer durables had, by law, a two-year warranty. In addition, manufacturers were obliged to guarantee the existence of parts for repair for at least 5 years from the date on which the product stopped being manufactured.

The new regulation extends these periods:

• The legal warranty for products becomes 3 years.
• The obligation to maintain the existence of repair parts and an adequate technical service is extended to 10 years from the date on which the product ceases to be manufactured.

Other deadlines that have changed is when a customer will have the right to choose between repair or replacement of the product. The non-conformity period has been extended from 3 to 5 years and the period for proving non-conformity with the purchased product has been extended from 6 months to one or two years, depending on the product.

A three-year warranty for cell phones, household appliances, televisions and other electronic products… It remains to be seen how the market reacts and whether the extension of the warranty will have an impact on product prices.

This series of measures have been incorporated into Spanish law by the transposition of the European Directive (EU) 2019/771 of 20 May 2019, following the European Consumer Agenda’s commitment to sustainability and distribution of consumption.

Some of the affected sectors have the opinion that Spain has exceeded in the transposition of the Directive, especially in reference to repair parts because it has unilaterally established this excessive period of 10 years.

In the same vein, some critical opinions consider that these modifications have been considered only one component of the legal business: the consumer. Companies are forced to assume new contracting conditions with the consequent cost that this warranty period involves: having stock, repair parts and adequate technical assistance. Thus, with these new regulations, technical assistance services are now more important than ever and must be able to keep up with the new measures. This has a direct impact on the activity of Technical Assistance Call Centers (HelpDesk), which must ensure that they provide a quality service according to the circumstances.

At MST Holding we have been experts in HelpDesk services for more than 30 years. We are a flexible company with a great capacity to adapt to the needs of our most demanding customers.

For more information please contact us at marketing@mstholding.com or through our website www.mstholding.com.

A complicated winter is announced. The war in Ukraine and the energy crisis are making the supply of electricity and gas more expensive, to the extent that it could be compromised in Europe. From Brussels, the European Commission urges member states to apply measures that contribute to reducing energy demand. In Spain, the Executive power has approved its Energy Savings Plan –waiting for it to be processed as a bill– with which it intends to reduce energy consumption and, at the same time, the economy of consumers.

The text includes, among other measures, an extraordinary review of boilers and thermal installations before December 31, 2022 -if the last one was carried out before January 1, 2021-. In this way, it is expected to reduce the number of incidents during the winter, in addition to to do a stricter control over the demand for energy resources.

The winter looks uncertain in terms of energy. Consumers will feel the effects of this long-lasting crisis in their pockets. Any measures they can take to reduce their demand will also benefit their economy. Therefore, in case of having a gas boiler -or thermal installation in the communities of owners-, it is useful checking and cleaning while it is still warm and before its ignition, because when switched off it is easy to access and maintenance.

At MST Holding, we are experts in Customer Service for HVAC companies. Prepare your Call Center for cold season call peaks with our help. While handling a higher call volume can be hard, at MST Holding we arranged with keeping customers satisfied.

Even in the most stressful times of call volume, customers expect great service. At MST Holding we have specialized and trained teams ready to help customers when they need it most. These busy times will not disrupt your business, but will increase customer loyalty.

From MST Holding we also point out the importance of all these actions being carried out by an approved professional or a technician provided by the manufacturer, who follows the manufacturer’s specifications.