A National Banking Group Improves the Cost to Income Ratio to 46% With Verint

The bank optimizes branch resource efficiency and reduces customer wait time with Verint WFM Branch Forecaster and Scheduler solutions.

Results

46%
Improved the cost to income ratio to 46%, best-in-class in the region.
15%
Improved branch resource alignment with customer demand by 15%.
20%
Reduced customer wait time by more than four minutes; a 20% reduction.

About the National Banking Group

A national banking group with a network of over 1,500 branches wanted to provide a seamless experience for their customers across all channels, including the branch. A key challenge was ensuring they had the right resources scheduled in the branches at the right time to create the best customer experience (CX) while optimizing resource utilization for improved efficiency.

Opportunity

Overcoming resource optimization challenges in bank branches

In addition, the bank is required to publish ‘rank on service’, which provides visibility of service level at each branch. Resource optimization was seen as a critical capability as it would help them significantly improve operational efficiency and align their service and sales capacity to customer demand and market opportunity.

Solution

Managing service levels via a data-driven, sustainable process

The bank realized that their existing scheduling solution and legacy internal processes for managing service levels were no longer meeting their needs. After assessing different options and solutions, the bank decided to partner with Verint to optimize their branch resources using a data-driven, sustainable process.

First, the bank conducted a branch operations field study to observe and analyze what was really going on in the branches. Findings from the study were then utilized to build leadership advocacy and to plan for success. The bank set up a Resource Optimization Team to equip their branch networks with the insight and capability to enable branches to effectively align resources to customer needs.

Next, the bank deployed the Verint Workforce Management Branch Forecaster and Verint Workforce Management Branch Scheduler solutions under a colleague resource tool with an initial focus on colleague communication, training, and support. Resource advocates provided additional support for branch managers and colleagues to achieve high user adoption.

Benefits

Improving service and resource efficiency

The combined impact of Verint’s branch data, analytics, and workforce management (WFM) solutions enabled the banking group to execute both tactical and strategic initiatives for improving service and resource efficiency.

Once the bank had 98% adoption of the colleague resource tool, the focus shifted to tactical decisions utilizing resource dashboards to understand pinch points and facilitate conversations about working patterns. As a result, the bank made better resourcing and recruitment decisions, which led to a more agile workforce. They also managed to shift advisors’ availability to more “needs met” activities instead of servicing/transacting and allocate more structured and planned time for colleague development.

Using the staffing and performance data from the Verint solutions, the bank gained new insights by triangulating the data from multiple sources (such as NPS) with the resource data. This strategic capability enabled them to assess the true correlation of resource effectiveness to customer experience. It shifted the focus and consistency of conversations across the branch network to efficiency rather than the FTE gap.

Ultimately, using Verint Workforce Management Branch Forecaster and Verint Workforce Management Branch Scheduler helped the bank improve the cost to income ratio (operating expenses of a bank as a percent of the sum of net-interest revenue and other operating income) to 46 percent, which was best-in-class for the region.

As they continue their branch transformation journey, the bank gained impressive overall performance improvements, including:

Improved NPS by 7 percent.
Increased resource supply to customer demand match ratio by 15 percent.
Reduced customer wait time by more than four minutes or 20 percent.
Improved colleague engagement and retention.

“Our colleague resourcing tool powered by Verint’s Workforce Management for Branch helped us make better resourcing and recruiting decisions. This enabled us to have a more agile workforce with improved colleague engagement.”
Director of Service & Resourcing, Leading Banking Group

Featured Verint solutions

Workforce Management Branch Forecaster
Determine the right staffing levels for each branch to drive efficiencies, sales and revenue growth, and CX.
Workforce Management Branch Scheduler
Automate the creation of optimized schedules for bank and credit union branches.