Understanding How Video Conferencing Can Support the Financial Sector

Whether you’re an independent financial adviser, or working for a leading global firm, chances are you’ve had some interesting requests from your clients. From asking for face-to-face meetings during the holidays to late night questions about their financial status, these customers need a lot from you. However, that doesn’t mean you’re on your own when it comes to connecting with the people that count on you to keep their accounts out of the red. The financial world and video conferencing have quite a lot to offer one another in this regard, so don’t discount the power of this digital tool when it comes to supporting your daily operations until you’ve looked over all the facts.

Going Mobile with Your Operations

Having access to face-to-face meetings with clients via desktops is nothing new, but the idea of being able to sit in your office all day and partake in these meetings is nothing more than wishful thinking. If there’s one thing you can count on as a financial professional, it’s that you’ll be on the road hitting up contacts and clients in your area on a daily basis. Naturally, working under this reality puts a massive strain on your ability to maximize every precious minute of the day.

With this in mind, one of the biggest boons offered to those working in the financial sector by video conferencing tools is the ability to go mobile with your operations. As ZDNet explains in a look at the growth of mobile video conferencing, having access to this type of tool can drastically improve your ability to stay connected with the people that matter most – all thanks to a simple tablet or smartphone.

Think of it this way; your client on the other side of town wants to have an impromptu personal meeting, but you’re already booked for a prior engagement at a credit union down the street in 20 minutes. Without mobile video conferencing on your side, balancing these two demands simply wouldn’t be possible. Fortunately, with the right smartphone and app, this nightmare quickly turns into a digital meeting that lets you assure your client that the sky, and his or her bank account, is in fact not falling.

Optimizing Daily Workflow and Reducing Expenditure

For larger firms and agencies operating in the world of financial services, Blue Jeans and other industry leaders offer some intriguing ways to promote profitability by optimizing your organization’s workflow. To help illuminate this point, Information Week provides an in-depth look into how video conferencing can help cut down on the fiscal challenges faced by your organization.

First, video conferencing can help reduce extraneous spending, and even select staffing positions, by eliminating the need for physical meetings with clients altogether. While it might take a little time getting comfortable talking with banking executives and other agents via digital video feed, once the accounting team and coordinating managers at your firm compare the costs of shipping out a team halfway across the world for a meeting or turning on the conference room computer, chances are everyone will be on board with this change quickly.

Even if you’re a smaller player in the market, that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the benefits of optimizing expenditure via the reduced costs associated with video conferencing as well. In fact, considering how important it is for agencies and independent operations to stay on budget, it’s even more critical that these organizations explore the options provided by this type of technology. Even if it means saving money on a few cross-state trips a year, that’s still an avoidable expense that could be put toward developing and enhancing your business prospects.

Defeating the Document Dilemma                                                                                          

Of course, by this point you’re probably thinking that all of this sounds great, but there’s still the problem of getting much needed documents to clients, partners, and governmental agencies. While this would be an issue for platforms that focus purely on video feeds, PC World explains that the world of video conferencing has many options that have evolved to meet this need. By including tools and services directly into the software associated with the video conference, participants can share files and documents in real time while conducting a digital meeting. Considering how many Excel files, Access Point data sheets, and word documents go into the financial advising process, this utility isn’t just helpful, it’s vital.

There’s no doubt that the financial world and the realm of video conferencing have a lot of common ground. From independent advisors trying to meet the needs of clients in and around town, to agencies that span the globe, having access to cost-effective and mobile face-to-face meetings, as well as the ability to share files instantaneously, revolutionizes how these organizations conduct business. As the financial world continues to move toward a primarily digital base of operations, if you haven’t started thinking about video conferencing’s role in your operations, now is as good a time as any to get a little more acquainted with the process.

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