Efficient Communication System for Remote Working

Guide to Successfully Managing Remote Workers in a Financial Company

If you wonder what to do with your money, Betterment Investment Services has made it their mission to provide the best possible option. Over a decade ago, Jon Stein presented Betterment to an audience of 20,000 people at TechCrunch Disrupt 2010. The rest was history. The company has evolved into a company with $29 billion of assets under management, serving over 600,000 customer accounts.

That being said, it does not mean the company has not encountered any issues with its internal communications, especially when transitioning to working remotely. So, how will it be possible to successfully run and manage remote workers in your financial and investment services company?

This industry requires a secured and effective work-from-anywhere environment. In this article, we will also provide you with tips on making remote work productive and continuously engaging employees with Dialpad Talk.

Dialpad Talk uses cloud calling and AI in keeping its employees flexible and productive. With 70,000 customers around the world, it has proven to be the leading business communication system. Is Dialpad suitable for your company? Discuss with Call Flow Solutions with our free 30-minute discovery call.

How Does Betterment Work?

Based in New York City, Betterment is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission and a  Financial Industry Regulatory Authority member. It is also a registered investment advisor and broker-dealer.

Betterment’s primary service is automated goal-based investing, which manages a portfolio of passive index-tracking equity and fixed income exchange-traded funds. In addition, it offers tax-advantaged and taxable investment accounts, which include traditional and Roth individual retirement accounts (IRAs). Only recently when it added human, financial advisors, and checking and savings accounts as additional services.

Backtrack to 2010, it was in the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis when Jon Stein launched the idea with the purpose to change money being complicated. Everyone wanted to make their money work with thousands of investing and retirement options, not to mention all the ways to save and spend money. People used to engage with dozens of financial companies with little to no guidance on how we should do so.

The following simple principles guide betterment:

• Everyone should have access to good, fiduciary guidance.
• Financial technology should provide that access.
• Financial services should center themselves around people as they build solutions.

Here’s a quick look at how Betterment evolved over the years:

• 2008 – 2009: The founders spent years building a product with a vision to make investment better.
• 2010 – 2013: The first time Betterment iterated the initial product and finally built the company as it found customers who are looking for a better way of investing.
• 2014 – 2016: This was the period of expansion when B4B and B4A were launched to bring technology to 401(k)s.
• 2017 – 2020: Preparing for takeoff, Betterment tackled new ways and went beyond investing into daily spending and saving.

The upcoming decade is very promising that it will only change for the better. Currently, the company is offering three types of pricing plans from a free Checking Account, Digital Investing that charges $2.50 a year for every $1,000, and Premium Investing with $400 a year for every $100,000.

The experts who work behind the scenes are a team of investing experts deciding on portfolio strategies and fund selection based on the help of economists, PhDs, and industry experts. However, Betterment is more than just a portfolio management team. Their experts also work to develop improvements to their cash analysis tools, tax-smart technology, and other advanced strategies.

The Challenge for Betterment

Without a doubt, the company has become one of the fastest-growing start-ups in the financial technology space, with over $200 million in venture capital raised from a long list of Silicon Valley investors.

However, Betterment struggled with their hyper-growth. In 2016, when it doubled its workforce, it threatened to overburden the existing communication system. Mike Bongardino, Betterment’s IT Manager, reiterated that nobody wanted a clunky phone on their desk. He also stated that their original phone system was not very well used. This was because it didn’t work very well that their staff would just skip it and use their softphones.

The challenge for Mike Bongardino, being at the forefront of a technology-driven company, was enabling people to work on the device that they are already doing all their communication. It was tricky, especially with only two people on the IT team. There was simply no time to fumble around in the back admin panel. Google apps are the backbone of their organization, and this means they needed an office phone system that would work with it effectively.

The old communication system was also inefficient and expensive. Bongardino disclosed their telephony bill, which was over $1,200 over a month, considering they barely use the service.

Another consideration for an office phone system is to ensure that it will allow them to work from anywhere. Betterment requires secured and effective equipment as they manage their remote workers. They needed a flexible communication system to enable their staff to work from home or anywhere else to serve their esteemed clients. The search was on!

Recommended Solution: To Shift to Dialpad Business Communication System

Dialpad did just that. It ticks all the requirements, while it does provisions users quickly. The interface is also intuitive, making the onboarding a piece of cake that pushed Betterment to Dialpad.

Aside from allowing their staff to work remotely, the office phone system also saved roughly 60% of their original phone bill. Betterment can also save a lot of time. What made it even greater to work with is that the workflow doesn’t change no matter where their remote workers are, who can do their job, completely uninterrupted.

Since switching to Dialpad, the company has seen more than 60% in cost savings. In addition, Dialpad was able to scale seamlessly depending on the needs of Betterment. This fast-moving start-up continues to experience bursts of growth as it gains traction and expands to new markets. All these have proven that Dialpad is a flexible, scalable, and always-on infrastructure that works perfectly for a financial company.

Other Tips to Successfully Managing Remote Workers

Do you need more tips on how to successfully make remote work productive? Here are our top tips:

Equip Employees with the Necessary Technology

Employees should have the necessary mobile phone, laptop with an adequate camera to attend virtual meetings. Don’t assume that people automatically know how to operate or be comfortable in a remote work setting.

Promote a Two-Way Dialogue Between Managers and Employees

This is to ensure that there is a common understanding of organizations’ decisions, their advantages, and their disadvantages. In addition, having two-way communication between managers and peers’ employees will only enable them to express any negative emotions comfortably.

Increase Recognition to Motivate Remote Workers

Not only that, but recognition also serves as a strong signal to other staff of behaviors they should emulate. It does not have to be monetary. It can be as simple as a public acknowledgment or tokens of appreciation.

Unified Business Communication System from Dialpad

Dialpad has long been our partner in providing unified business communication that works on any device. The phone system is built for the modern workstyle that allows unmatched security, flexibility, and reliability. It is also simple to deploy, maintain, integrate and scale.

You don’t have to worry about integrating your current tools because Dialpad can sync with it seamlessly. It works with Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, and many more. With AI being a part of the workflow, you can work from anywhere, accompanied by Voice Intelligence. It transcribes calls and tracks action items turning them into analytics and call sentiment.

Most importantly, Dialpad can connect your teams and customers wherever they are in the world. There are call, chat, meet and collaborate features on one single app.

Aside from managing remote workers, Dialpad also helps in accelerating customer satisfaction. If you are running a company with customers from different time zones, having staff from around the world that match their time zone can also work with Dialpad that makes it possible to scale up or down as needed.

Manage Remote Workers by Building a Connected Company

Because of Dialpad’s satisfactory services, Betterment can now connect employees across their favorite devices, as it supports voice, video, and messaging in one place. Mike Bongardino mentioned how the company initially had one phone line that rang a bunch of desk phones, disrupting everybody. Switching to Dialpad has been a life-changer and helped the financial services company build a connected company even if they are working remotely.

If you are unsure if Dialpad is for you, it offers a 14-day free trial where you can choose between Dialpad Talk and Dialpad Sell. The former powers companies worldwide like Uber and WeWork with its patented voice intelligence that transcribes every call to text and saves every conversation. The latter is the only sales tool offering inbound and outbound sales call with auto dialer and local number appearance.

Should you make the switch to Dialpad? How can Dialpad help your global workforce serve your international customers? Call Flow Solutions can help direct you to the most fitting business phone system vendor by providing you with our unbiased recommendations on the best business phone systems in the market.