As the world is preparing for a “new normal”, the post Covid time is going to be decisive and will completely change the way businesses are operating. The digital transformation has taken place with a huge spike in usage of various digital channels. The financial services sector, which accounts for 22 trillion dollars has also been hugely impacted due to this rapidly changing environment, and needs to keep a firm grip in order to prevail in this uncertainty.

Since many financial firms opted for remote working, they still find it difficult to catch good traction in this virtual world. To cope up with that, many companies have embraced the usage of cloud-based SaaS services that can provide substantial benefits while working from home.

However, the major point of concern for owners of financial companies is – productivity levels of their employees, as they never have faced such circumstances before. Thus, financial services firms need to upskill and stretch themselves to tackle the ongoing challenges.

So, let’s look at some of the important strategies for financial services firms that will help them enhance the workflow and boost productivity in these unprecedented times.

Getting the Best Out of Fintech Platforms

The financial technology, popularly known as “fintech” has emerged as a powerhouse recently and growing indispensably with the global fintech market crossing the milestone of 100 million mark in 2019 itself. Taking the payment systems to a new level, the fintech industry has made life easy for many financial services companies and for all those people working around the industry, but only as far as they know how to utilize them in a correct manner.

Below are some compelling benefits of fintech:

1) Real-time insights: Many fintech startups have gone a step ahead and provide some fascinating real-time matrices that are very useful for businesses as well as individuals.

2) More convenience in Payment: There are tons of payment options and platforms made available that provide you much more convenience in paying or receiving the money.

3) Improved security & privacy: The very first thing users look around in any fintech platform is – security. It becomes foremost important because transactions are of massive amounts and contain sensitive information like bank or credit card details.

4) Mobile Apps for flexibility: Growing usage of mobile phones for transactions has enforced even start-ups to launch a mobile app that facilitates users to access everything at their fingertips. Apparently, mobile applications are not treated as an option but a necessity.

5) Speed: The advancements in fintech have led to ultra-speedy operations. A transaction is comprised of just a few seconds with you having to unlock the app via biometric (face or fingerprint) verification and entering the details.

Keeping the above advantages in mind, financial services firms can use fintech platforms in various ways. These smart-systems are powered by the latest AI and machine learning algorithms coupled with blockchain security to improve the workflow.

Manage all the things in one place by using smart CRMs (Customer Relationship Management)

This is very useful for those professionals who directly communicate with customers like insurance agents. A finance CRM helps them to organize everything and keep track of all deals. Nowadays, many CRMs offer advanced processes to automate most of the manual tasks.

Let’s look at some benefits which financial services firms stands to enjoy if they use a CRM.

1) Streamlined workflow: By keeping everything in one platform, a CRM will strengthen your workflow without a shadow of a doubt.

2) Seamless Communication: You can communicate with your colleagues with ease. Furthermore, you can assign tasks and post regular updates which keeps everyone on the same page.

3) Integration with popular platforms: This is another crucial benefit of CRM as they offer integration with other popular channels like Gmail.  It will omit users from doing some tedious copy-pasting tasks. A few CRMs might offer integration with fintech apps as well.

4) Track productivity of Finance agents: The forecasting matrices gives you a quick glance of progress towards the goal and productivity of each finance agent.

5) Effective lead management: You can create different funnel stages that will help you to analyze the leads more effectively.

CRM has now become the bread and butter of every growing business and data shows that CRM software is the biggest software market in the world right now and CRM developers as the most demanding staff.. It is not only used to manage your customers but also provides thorough insights into how your customers behave to help you design the personalized experience accordingly. These tailored solutions will result into build strong relationships and more customer retention rate. The right finance CRM will breed you apart from your competitors.

Some Important Soft Skills to Keep Yourself Productive

1) Plan your Workday: This gives you a clear overview of your upcoming tasks. So, jot down the lists of tasks, prioritize them, and allot an estimated time to each task.

2) Effective Communications: It enhances the integrity and bonding of the teams. Indeed, communication is the heart of remote working. Thus, schedule the daily standups and weekly update meetings to keep a close eye on the workflow.

3) Use dashboards to analyze: It’s basically a visual representation of your tasks from which you can track the overall progress.

It gives you an overall idea of your productivity, tasks accomplished and remaining, and finally allows you to focus on things that matter the most.

Final Words 

It’s high time for all the business including financial services firms to pivot from traditional methods to digitalization and leverage the technological advancements as much as possible. And on top of that, you need to identify the right tools and services for your finance business. There are oodles of fintech apps, CRMs, and other tools available in the market which can help you to deliver better. You need to do some brainstorming with each of them by comparing thoroughly in order to choose the best one.

On the other hand, the importance of soft skills in elevating productivity levels cannot be neglected. Your way of communication, listening and management skills, and how your team mates perceive your words and understand you, all these types of tiny things collectively impacts your overall workflow.

Author bio: Raaquib Pathan is a content marketing specialist having expertise in providing insights into the latest sales and marketing paradigms. Honing his skills in SEO coupled with content marketing, he helps brands increase their reach and dominate search results.