For banks that are looking to leverage their retail branch footprint for more lines-of-business, Bank Connect allows you to transform the way your branch uses the telephone everyday to bring significantly more value to your business. Bank Connect will help you to give priority treatment to your most important customers, and route all of your customers to the bank branch employee with the appropriate skill set. It will allow your bank branch associates to more efficiently handle incoming calls by streamlining interaction with your CRM solutions to automatically lookup customer information and pre-populate forms. It will give your managers an at-a-glance dashboard to see whether branch staffing levels are adequate to handle walk-in and phone-in business, enabling them to make decisions that increase branch customer satisfaction, revenue and staff productivity.
Designed For Retail Branch Locations
Bank Connect is designed for banks with retail branchs that offer multiple line-of-business products. It provides managers and store personnel with the information they need about their phone-in business to run their operations more effectively. Combined with Cisco’s Unified Communications platform, it provides a robust, feature-rich solution that transforms the branches phone system from merely a few telephones to a complete communications solution that is intelligently integrated into your business process. Bank Connect can be deployed in a distributed or centralized model, and system management can be performed either locally or remotely, as desired.
Makes Bank Employees More Productive
Every minute a bank employee spends finding and transferring a call to someone else who knows the customer or specific product better is a minute they are not spending helping other walk-in or phone-in customers. Moreover, given that some customers generate more branch revenue than others do, over the long term you are not just losing today’s business for that premier customer who could not wait on hold.
With Bank Connect, current customers are automatically transferred to the best individual or group within the branch to help them. Incoming calls from designated priority customers will receive distinctive ring tones and flashing lights, as well as specific customer information on the Cisco IP Phone handset displays, to ensure that the customer gets priority treatment. The phones are linked to individual terminals in the branch allowing employees to instantly link incoming caller information to the information on their screens to quickly process account transactions or address customer services matters.
Additionally, the Bank Connect management dashboard shows real-time telephone performance data, showing active calls and missed calls with priority color coding, and produces historical call reports, including successful calls, missed calls, wait time, etc. With Bank Connect providing unprecedented access to this information at a local branch level, managers can better understand customer behavior and calling patterns to ensure excellent customer service across product lines. It offers branch managers the tools to drive high performance from their staff and to make adjustments accordingly.
Keeping It Simple
Bank Connect is tightly integrated with Cisco’s Unified Communications product line. The hardware for individual stores can be as simple and cost-effective as a single Cisco Integrated Services Router (2800/3800 series) or UC500 running Cisco’s Unified Communications Manager Express and Cisco IP Phones. This offering includes a fully functional IP PBX with optional T1/EI trunk interfaces and integrated unified messaging and automated attendant capability, as well as routing, switching, and security features.
Together with Bank Connect, this unparalleled all-in-one solution will enable your branches to sell and service a wide variety of products.
Key Benefits:
Handle calls for multiple line-of-business products in the branch
Improve customer service
Ensure customer loyalty
Better understand customer behavior
Differentiate from competition
Enhance operational efficiency
Application Features:
Calls routed to phone or phone group based on customer record
Available as a “single box” solution using Cisco AXP
Distinctive ring and flashing buttons based on customer priority
Phone display of customer data, such as name, company, priority level, phone number, etc.
Management dashboard shows active calls and missed calls in real-time, with priority color coding
Management dashboard produces historical call reports, including successful calls, missed calls, wait time, etc.
Specialized call treatment by priority level, automated announcements, and music on hold
Hardware Components:
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager) or Communications Manager Express on ISR routers/UC500
Bank Connect Application Server. This can be a separate server or Cisco's Application Extension Platform (AXP) combining the ISR router and the application server in a single box
Cisco Unified IP Phones
Software Components:
The following Voice and Application Servers are supported:
The following Voice XML Browsers are supported:
JBoss
Apache Tomcat
WebSphere Application Server 6.1
Cisco IOS Voice XML Browser 12.4(3) +
The following Database servers are supported:
The following Operating Systems are supported
PostgreSQL
IBM DB2 9
Server: Linux Red Hat Enterprise 3 Update 5
Windows Server 2003
Solaris 5.8
Desktop Client: Windows XP, Vista, Server 2003
The following Web browsers for administration are supported:
The following PBX’s are supported
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5, 6.0, 7.0
Mozilla Firefox 2 +
Cisco Unified Communications Manager 5 +
Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express
Question: Bank Connect seems like it does many of the things that contact center applications do. Is it as complex and as difficult to operate as a contact center solution?
Answer: No, Bank Connect's overriding design guideline is small size and simplicity. It is designed to be installed in a large number of branches, and to be operated by in-store/branch personnel.
Question: Can Bank Connect be managed by a centralized IT or telecom group?
Answer: Yes, Bank Connects flexible architecture allows either local or remote management of the system within the branch.
Question: Given Bank Connect does many things that contact center software does, is it expensive?
Answer: No, Bank Connect is priced attractively for banks that wish to deploy it in as few as a dozen branches, or as many as thousands of branches.
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