It was recently announced in an American Banker piece that the merger between Verint (News - Alert) and call center workforce management provider GMT will give the banking industry one company that now owns 76 percent of the market share among the top 25 U.S. retail banks, catering to nine out of the top 10. The deal is worth an impressive $42 million.

According to the article, both Verint and GMT are noticing an increasingly popular trend of smaller banks integrating their software into business operations. "While historically it's been the bigger banks that have been forced to adopt this technology, we're now seeing a lot of growth among small and mid-size community banks and credit unions as well," Simon Angove, CEO of GMT said in a statement.

There are three main factors that are continuing to push retail banks towards acquiring call center workforce optimization software, Angove revealed. First is the need to cut costs, which usually consists of branch-based, he says. "Generally speaking, one-third of a bank's payroll is tellers alone," Angove commented. "How do you make sure they're efficient and that people aren't sitting around idle, waiting for work?"

The second factor in seamlessly integrating workforce management software is the need to measure up to increasing customer demands, and achieving a high level of customer satisfaction. "Banks want to make sure they have just the right number of staff in the branch so they don't keep customers waiting and provide a consistent experience," Angove stated.

The third reason to purchase workforce management software is that it will continuously drive sales within the branch. "The branch is still an important channel, even in a multi-channel world," Angove says. "It's still the place where most sales transactions are consummated, even if customers did their explorations through other channels, so it's critical they make sure they've got the right number of sellers in the branch to address the market opportunity and that those sellers are working on the right things. We help them do that by making sure they've got their technology and their people deployed in the right place at the right time."

Jackie Hudson, director, retail banking practice at Verint concluded in regards to call center workforce management provider GMT, "They've done some great things with their product, some of the tools they've developed in terms of sales effectiveness and technology value optimization will be key to the combined organization."