Trend Report

How top financial teams run client support in 2026

We analyzed data across 340 financial service companies that have run client support on Help Scout for an average of 5 years. Here’s how the top teams build systems where nothing slips through the cracks.

In finance, trust rides on every reply

Whether you’re assisting with a loan application or managing a retirement account, one missed email can be the moment that changes the client relationship.

The most responsive teams don’t just rely on basic email folders and fragile filtering rules. They lean on tools that prioritize conversations across the right teams and speed up the in-between tasks that take their focus off clients.

Take a look at the top trends among financial teams that consistently stay on top of client communication.

01AI DRAFTS

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Speed matters: They’re 37% more likely to use AI Drafts than average

Getting a head start on replies is one of the simplest ways to speed up response time, and financial teams have taken notice. With AI Drafts, they can instantly generate a reply based on past conversations and internal documentation. All it takes from there is a quick review and any necessary tweaks before hitting send.

38.6% also use saved replies — templated responses to common questions you can insert with a click. Both are great tools for getting back to clients faster without sacrificing quality and control.

02INBOXES + ROUTING

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Built-in ownership: 40% of financial service companies manage at least 3 inboxes

Great communication starts with understanding who’s responsible for what. When ownership isn’t clear, important messages get ignored or teammates end up duplicating replies.

That’s why many of your peers on Help Scout use multiple shared inboxes to divide incoming messages by function (support, underwriting, compliance, and fraud, for example). 25% also divide groups of users into teams that allow multiple departments to work in the same inbox, or for offering tiered support. By combining multiple inboxes and teams with automatic routing, everyone is working from the same reality. There’s clear visibility into ownership on every conversation, so clients are never overlooked.

03WORKFLOWS

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Busywork handles itself: 55% rely on automatic workflows

Any repetitive tasks you’re doing manually to keep things organized can be automated in Help Scout. Financial service companies run an average of 4,934 automatic actions on their conversations every month, from labeling and routing requests to prioritizing urgent messages. These workflows are triggered by conditions like client email address, conversation subject, keywords in messages, wait time, status, and more.

Automating these everyday in-between tasks not only gives teams more time to focus on higher value work, it also ensures the tasks get done consistently.

04KNOWLEDGE BASE

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Answers are always available: 60% have a knowledge base

Clients don’t always have time to wait for an answer, even if your team is available to help them. In those moments, it pays to have a convenient self-service option like a knowledge base. It’s a collection of articles and resources that provide answers to common questions like how to open an account or set up direct deposit. Most financial service companies maintain at least one, and 21% have multiple.

About 10% also use AI Answers, a chatbot that can use knowledge base content to answer questions instantly. Those teams are able to handle roughly 3x the conversation volume, which shows how impactful AI can be when it’s trained on the right sources.

Better systems, better relationships

Across all 340 companies, the pattern is clear. The most trusted teams have systems in place that let them focus on what they do best: manage the client relationship. Instead of constantly chasing loose threads, everyone knows who owns each message, what’s most urgent, and where things stand. The admin work gets done automatically in the background so nothing gets dropped. And when clients run into a problem, they have more than one path to a solution.

Client expectations may be rising, but financial service teams have more tools at their disposal than ever before to keep up with them.

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