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Financial technology (fintech) companies are ideally positioned to serve the rapidly growing market of gig workers and employers. They create innovative tools that simplify payments to match the flexible nature of freelance and on-demand work.
However, keeping up with this sector’s unique financial challenges can take time and effort. Thus, fintech companies are turning to business process outsourcing (BPO) to efficiently adapt to the complex demands of the gig economy.
This article explores how fintech BPO can help developers improve their services for gig workers, employers, and platforms. Keep reading to learn the benefits of this strategy for your business!
1. Improve the UX on fintech platforms
Gig workers often face irregular income streams, and fintech services offer a quick and convenient approach to payment processing. Catering to this demand has expanded the fintech industry, especially after the pandemic. According to Fortune Business Insights, the global fintech sector’s value reached almost $295 billion in 2023.
However, a poorly designed user experience (UX) can make payment even more challenging for gig workers and employers.
Fintech BPO teams can create platforms with seamless user journeys for your customers. Similar to employer of record (EOR) providers who cover human resource (HR) tasks, they offer solutions to help streamline specialized tasks.
Here are a few ways fintech outsourcing can help enhance your app’s overall UX:
Streamlined user onboarding
Fintech BPO providers can handle the initial user registration process for freelancers and employers in the gig economy. This function involves collecting and verifying the necessary user information to enroll in your platform, which typically includes:
- Personal or business information
- Government ID verification
- Financial information
- Tax information
- Payment information
- Gig worker’s qualifications and skills
- Project details
They can also take care of Know Your Customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) verification processes. These steps authenticate a new user’s identity to ensure they do not participate in fraudulent and corrupt financial schemes.
With the outsourcing team handling these processes, setting up accounts is quick and frictionless. It streamlines UX, minimizing the time needed to use your app. This efficiency is crucial in the fast-paced gig economy.
Simplified payment processing
As the gig economy continues to boom, fintech companies face higher volumes of transactions with a diverse user base. This circumstance can make tracking payments, inquiries, and data security requirements challenging.
Partnering with a fintech BPO provider can help you navigate the complexities of this environment. It integrates with your platform to:
- Automate payout calculations, payment triggers, and reconciliation
- Manage currency exchange rates, international transaction fees, and local compliance
- Implement fraud prevention measures, such as identity verification and transaction monitoring
Leveraging fintech BPO services allows your company to create a more efficient and secure payment environment for parties in the gig economy.
Data-driven user insights
The outsourcing team collects and analyzes user interaction data on your fintech platform through customer support. It can also gather user insights by tracking the following:
- Feature usage
- Navigation patterns
- Completion rates
- Login frequency
- Transaction volume
- Abandonment rates
The collected information can identify bottlenecks in the user journey for targeted improvements. For example, you can determine the most underutilized and popular features and use the data to improve products or services.
2. Provide positive customer support
It can be daunting to accommodate and address multiple inquiries and complaints about your fintech platform and services. Users expect companies to provide a smooth, user-friendly experience while ensuring robust information privacy measures.
Fintech BPO providers typically have a dedicated customer support team. Similar to a contact center for e-commerce, these agents are trained to understand and master their clients’ specific fintech platforms, including the app’s services, products, and policies.
These teams are also well-versed and stay up-to-date with applicable financial, tax, data privacy, and consumer protection regulations, such as:
- Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)
- Financial consumer protection laws based on jurisdictions
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
- California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
- International tax laws
- Fair lending laws
- Consumer dispute resolution
Additionally, customer support outsourcing agents possess excellent communication, problem-solving, and interpersonal skills. These skills allow them to guide users and seamlessly provide a positive customer service experience.
Here are a few ways a fintech BPO team can help enhance your platform’s support strategies for freelancers and clients in the gig economy:
Omnichannel customer service
Gig workers often use different tools to work quickly. Allowing users to reach your support team directly from any device can make a difference when they encounter an issue with your fintech platform.
Customer service outsourcing teams for fintech offer omnichannel contact center solutions. They use a central platform and integrate with the customer relationship management (CRM) system. These tools allow them to provide support across different communication channels, including the following:
- Phone
- Live chat
- Social media
- In-app help center
- Messaging apps
- Mobile apps
Omnichannel support lets agents view all user interactions from any channel and provide consolidated assistance. For example, if a user first contacts your fintech company via email, they won’t need to repeat the information in subsequent interactions, whether through social media or live chat.
Personalized user experience
Fintech BPO teams can personalize customer interactions through targeted communication and proactive support. Their capabilities are honed through thorough agent training and data collection and analysis. Personalization strategies include:
- Using customer names
- Referencing past interactions
- Offering personalized recommendations
- Conducting predictive analysis
- Implementing trigger-based outreach
Fintech BPO teams also use tools such as artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots to personalize support for individuals in the gig economy.
This emerging technology leverages machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) to imitate human interactions. Companies can train them using customer data to provide custom responses and recommendations.
24/7 global customer support
Gig workers and employers often have flexible schedules. They typically work evenings, weekends, and early mornings and might require support beyond regular business hours.
A fintech BPO provider can help you accommodate these needs with global, round-the-clock customer service. Its team members are spread across different geographical locations and time zones.
Even when workers are based in a single location, customer support outsourcing vendors for the fintech industry employ strategic shift scheduling to ensure 24/7 agent availability. If a gig worker or employer encounters a problem while working, they can quickly connect to support through their preferred channel.
3. Enhance fintech service scalability
A customer base of gig economy workers can introduce significant transaction fluctuations. One day, your fintech platform might experience a surge in payment transfers and user registrations, while the next might see a dip in activity. This unpredictability makes predicting technology and staffing needs challenging, causing resource strains.
A fintech BPO provider can help you adjust your operations as needed to adapt to the dynamic nature of the gig economy. Besides providing 24/7 support, vendors can increase service scalability through the following:
On-demand resource allocation
Service vendors can readily access a pool of trained and experienced fintech support personnel, such as customer service agents, payment processing specialists, and technical experts.
This capability allows them to allocate additional workforce quickly to meet your increased demand. Thus, you always have adequate staff to accommodate high transaction volumes from gig workers and employers.
If you need to scale down, they can also redeploy some BPO team members to other functions to avoid overstaffing.
Integrated technology and automation
Based on changing demand, BPO firms leverage cloud-based infrastructure to dynamically adjust server capacity and other resources. This technology lets your fintech company scale efficiently and avoid expensive upfront tech investments.
They also utilize various automation tools to streamline processes and reduce manual tasks. One example is robotic process automation (RPA), which can automate high volumes of repetitive, rule-based tasks, such as:
- Data entry and validation
- Account verification and KYC checks
- Transaction processing and reconciliation
- Report generation
Ticketing systems are another example, automating the process of logging, tracking, and routing customer support inquiries. Meanwhile, knowledge management systems (KMS) give agents easy access to a centralized repository of information, allowing for faster and more accurate services.
The bottom line
Fintech, BPO, and the gig economy are interrelated. Outsourcing teams provide fintech companies the support they need to accommodate the dynamic needs of gig workers and employers who rely on them.
Let’s connect if you’re looking for an outsourcing provider to help your fintech company navigate the gig economy.
