For years, financial services firms have been recording, logging and archiving phone calls and other transaction-related communications to stay in compliance with the vast regulations that govern their industry, and to support general business best practices. But many firms haven’t focused enough on mobile devices when it comes to recording, archiving and retrieving calls, texts and other mobile communications. This has to change — and fast — if financial services firms are to stay on the right side of the law and deliver the best customer experience.

Regulation Foundation

While call recording regulations in the Dodd-Frank Act focus on the contact center and certain types of trades, mobile calls placed to the firm must be recorded. With the new administration still figuring out whether it will continue such requirements, smart companies are sticking with what they know: It’s better to be careful than to be wrong after the fact. Therefore, most financial services firms would be wise to record all business-related calls and texts placed to and from a mobile device by any of their employees, unless the states they operate in have specific laws forbidding such recording.

But the benefits of recording mobile calls go way beyond compliance and training. Just as important is staying ahead of the competition, and mobile recording can really shine when it comes to the customer experience. Most financial firms know that in today’s increasingly global marketplace, the so-called mass affluent investor wants investment advice that they can immediately understand and act on anywhere, at any time. To fulfill that need, companies must deliver personalized, relevant marketing messages tied to offerings that make sense for each client based on the personal information they’ve collected over the course of the customer relationship — including all online and telephone-based interactions.

Enabling more than one employee to customize opportunities for each client requires access to real-time and historical information across a wide array of databases and analytics applications, as well as back-office software systems like marketing automation and customer relationship management (CRM) tools. Ignoring the information that travels across mobile devices via phone calls, texts, chats and other means of communication will result in gaps in corporate knowledge — and that will make it harder for firms to deliver a truly personal experience for every user, every time.

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Business-wide Benefits

Indeed, considering the importance of building personal relationships with clients, the biggest return from mobile call recording and archiving can come from improved customer service, not just for a single advisor but across the entire organization. Recording mobile communications allows firms to keep client information and relationship data in the hands of the company, so that if, for example, a financial advisor leaves the organization, all their accumulated customer knowledge doesn’t leave with them. It’s also a way to close corporate knowledge gaps and build increasingly personalized financial services as part of corporate offerings.

Today’s investors are tech-savvy and expect contextual experiences across all communications channels. Some still prefer face-to-face interactions; others choose to engage with a trusted financial professional on the phone; and many younger investors want to communicate via text, mobile apps and social media.

By recording and archiving all mobile communications between employees and your customers, organizations can analyze that data to better populate the marketing and CRM systems that drive their business — leading to more opportunities, clients and revenues, and ensuring they meet all regulatory compliance requirements.

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Melanie Turek

As an Associate Fellow and VP of Research for Connected Work at Frost & Sullivan, Melanie covers a broad range of markets, leveraging long-standing relationships with leading industry participants’ senior executives and customer organizations. Melanie has more than 25 years' experience covering video and web conferencing, social networking, unified communications, voice, IP communications, and instant messaging and presence, as well as a wide range of business software and services. Melanie brings deep technical expertise and in-depth understanding of the ways in which technology can positively impact business processes and performance. She studied social anthropology at Harvard, and she views technology transformation through that lens.

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