Celebrating Our 2024 Customer Innovation Awards Winners

For 19 years, the Genesys Customer Innovation Awards have recognized and celebrated the remarkable accomplishments of our customers. Today, we’re thrilled to showcase the achievements of this year’s winners; their commitment to innovation has elevated both customer experiences (CX) and employee experiences (EX) to new heights, delivering significant impact.

We are immensely proud of these organizations for their unwavering commitment to providing some of the most exceptional experiences in the industry. You are all a true inspiration to us, and we wish you a heartfelt congratulations!

2024 Genesys Customer Innovation Awards Winner Highlights

Western Sydney University

CX Achiever (SMB/Mid-Market) — Most innovative CX and EX strategy

Western Sydney University is one of Australia’s leading higher learning institutions, ranked in the top 250 universities globally and number one in the world for its social, economic and environmental impact in the Times Higher Education (THE) University Impact Rankings in 2022 and 2023.

Its contact centers relied on a mix of legacy technologies that couldn’t keep up with its growing student population — leading to high call abandonment rates. In addition, it couldn’t support digital channels, which its students use most.

In response, WSU adopted the Genesys Cloud™ platform to unify communication methods into a single interface and expand digital channels for student interaction. This deployment revolutionized student engagement, empowering agents with tools for personalized and timely responses.

Students can now seamlessly initiate conversations across various channels, including voice, messaging, SMS and WhatsApp. The digital evolution at WSU significantly decreased voice abandonment rates by 45% and improved average speed of answer by 65%, enhancing the overall student-agent interaction. WSU has also seen satisfaction scores improve, with an average CSAT of 90%.

Beyond student engagement, Genesys Cloud has positively impacted the daily operations and satisfaction of contact center agents at WSU. The platform’s intuitive interface and unified access to communication channels have streamlined agent workflows, leading to increased agent satisfaction and initial productivity boosts of up to 30 minutes per agent per day, with simplified navigation across fewer screens. Agents have praised the platform’s reliability and functionality, demonstrating its effectiveness in enhancing overall operational efficiency and the quality of interactions within the university’s contact centers.

Zurich Insurance

CX Achiever (Enterprise) — Most innovative CX and EX strategy

Leading global insurer, Zurich Insurance Group (Zurich) has relentlessly focused on enhancing both CX and EX since transitioning to Genesys Cloud in 2019. Prior to Genesys Cloud, Zurich faced limitations with its legacy on-premises solution, which hindered its ability to adapt to changing customer needs and market dynamics. The company sought greater flexibility and enhanced reporting capabilities. It also wanted to eliminate complex manual processes.

Moving to Genesys Cloud has been transformative for Zurich Switzerland, redefining its approach to customer and employee engagement. Leveraging the experience orchestration capabilities of Genesys Cloud, the insurance provider has achieved remarkable business outcomes, including a significant increase in sales.

The company expanded its communication channels outside traditional phone and email to include chat and WhatsApp, meeting customers on their preferred platforms. By customizing Genesys Cloud using open APIs, Zurich Switzerland streamlined processes, leading to an impressive improvement in first-contact resolution (FCR) and overall customer satisfaction.

Recognizing the critical link between employee satisfaction and customer experience, Zurich Switzerland activated Genesys Cloud Workforce Engagement Management (WEM) to motivate and empower its teams. This enabled the company to equip managers with data-driven insights for optimization, resulting in enhanced multilingual support, a substantial increase in employee satisfaction scores and employee retention rates. This comprehensive approach underscores its commitment to leveraging technology to deliver exceptional service while supporting and empowering its workforce.

National Domestic Violence Hotline

CX Humanitarian — Best example of serving humanity through Genesys solutions

The National Domestic Violence Hotline (The Hotline), the only national 24/7/365 service in the US dedicated to supporting survivors of domestic violence, faced challenges meeting the overwhelming demand for its services amidst limited funding. To address this, the nonprofit adopted Genesys Cloud, enabling it to scale operations efficiently and provide stronger support to advocates delivering survivor-centered services. Now, all interactions go through Genesys Cloud across voice, web chat, SMS and teletype (TTY) channels. Over its lifetime, The Hotline has handled over 7 million calls, chats and texts.

The AI strategy of The Hotline focuses on two key areas: enhancing self-service options for survivors and empowering advocates with better resources to assist effectively. Genesys Cloud AI helps identify the needs and preferences of survivors, aiding them in accessing services and information tailored to their specific circumstances — whether through self-service or direct interaction with an advocate.

Additionally, Genesys Cloud AI supports advocates by suggesting responses and information, enabling faster and more comprehensive support for survivors seeking assistance, offering education, and giving validation in making critical decisions with dignity and respect. Since introducing voluntary voicebots, The Hotline as reduced average handle time (AHT) by 1.5 minutes. When help can’t come soon enough, this decrease in AHT enables The Hotline to help more survivors more quickly.

Virgin Atlantic

CX Innovator (Enterprise) — Best use of Genesys Cloud AI

As the United Kingdom’s second largest airline, Virgin Atlantic has embraced innovation to enhance its offerings, emphasizing high-quality and affordable flights, nonstop transatlantic routes, and extensive connectivity across North America, Europe and the UK. To propel its digital transformation and elevate customer experience, Virgin Atlantic required an integrated solution capable of personalizing engagement, gathering comprehensive customer journey insights and enhancing employee productivity.

This quest led the airline to adopt Genesys Cloud, leveraging its AI capabilities to achieve remarkable outcomes and establish itself as a frontrunner in CX innovation.

Implementing Genesys Cloud has significantly boosted the airline’s operational efficiency. By deploying Genesys Bot Flows and predictive routing, Virgin Atlantic has streamlined customer interactions — achieving a 25-point improvement in CSAT ratings, 29% self-service resolution rate and reducing call handling times by 15% through smarter agent matching.

Moreover, leveraging AI-driven analytics has notably improved first-contact resolution rates by 6 points and call answer rates by 33 points, leading to quicker and more effective issue resolutions during initial customer interactions. This technology has also contributed to a 12-point increase in employee happiness in 12 months, partly attributed to predictive routing that aligns employees with tasks best suited to their strengths, thereby enhancing engagement and overall performance. Through these advancements, Virgin Atlantic has solidified its reputation as a leader in CX innovation.

Kiwibank

CX Innovator (SMB/Mid-Market) — Best use of Genesys Cloud AI

Kiwibank, New Zealand’s largest locally owned bank, prioritizes delivering exceptional digital experiences while upholding the security of its online banking services for over one million customers. Seeking to enhance its voicebot capabilities, which had become outdated and complex over time, Kiwibank partnered with Genesys to modernize its approach.

The introduction of Genesys Cloud AI, supported by its partner Spark NZ, enabled Kiwibank to streamline its digital and voice-based self-service, resulting in significant operational improvements. Within just four months of adopting the Genesys voicebot, Kiwibank achieved a 28% reduction in abandonment rates, a 19% decrease in AHT and a 27% drop in transfer rates. These enhancements allow Kiwibank to address customer inquiries more efficiently with its voicebot solution and seamlessly route to appropriate agents when human intervention is needed.

By leveraging Genesys voicebot capabilities, Kiwibank has simplified its customer journey, enabling customers to resolve most of their needs through self-service. This approach has substantially reduced the amount of customer intents requiring live agent support by an impressive 98%.

The positive impact on customer satisfaction is evident, with Kiwibank reporting a 3-point increase in overall customer satisfaction, a 4-point improvement in successfully directing customers to the right agent and a 3-point uptick in providing quick decisions for customer queries. The adoption of Genesys Cloud AI has been impactful for Kiwibank, leading to improved operational efficiency and elevated customer experiences across its banking services.

Bancolombia and Global Networks Solutions

CX Mover (Partner) — Best cloud implementation

Bancolombia, a renowned 145-year-old financial services organization in Latin America, prioritized enhancing CX, fostering innovation, reducing costs and navigating complex financial regulations. To achieve these goals, Bancolombia worked closely with partner Global Networks Solutions to successfully deploy Genesys Cloud to more than 2,500 agents within just eight months. This implementation, combined with other financial solutions, resulted in significant improvements, including a 16% decrease in AHT for client inquiries, a 2-point increase in FCR and a 5-point boost in client satisfaction on digital channels.

The impact of Genesys Cloud extended beyond customer experience to the bottom line of Bancolombia. Using Genesys Predictive Engagement, it saw growth between 17-40% in digital sales for credit card, consumer credit and payment products. Moreover, the organization achieved a 12% reduction in business process outsourcing (BPO) costs.

Genesys Cloud has also empowered Bancolombia with greater agility and technological independence, enabling accelerated time-to-market for future innovations. The platform’s flexibility allows Bancolombia to deploy new services and partnerships swiftly, positioning the organization competitively and enabling it to adapt to evolving customer demands and expectations.

This strategic partnership with Genesys has propelled Bancolombia toward its goals of operational excellence and sustained growth within the dynamic financial services landscape.

NetApp

CX Mover (Professional Services Implementation) — Best cloud implementation

NetApp, a top intelligent data infrastructure company, implemented Genesys Cloud to enhance operational efficiency, improve customer experiences and boost agent productivity within its contact center operations. Seeking greater visibility and data-driven decision-making capabilities, NetApp partnered with Genesys Professional Services to swiftly deploy Genesys Cloud — achieving notable business outcomes in operating expenses, customer experience metrics and other key indicators.

Modivcare

EX Mobilizer — Best example of optimizing workforce or employee engagement

Modivcare, a leading tech-enabled people first healthcare company specializing in non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT), personal in-home care services and virtual patient monitoring, has prioritized delivering personalized experiences to its vast membership base of 34 million individuals. By leveraging Genesys Cloud, Modivcare has become a trailblazer in its industry, implementing AI to enhance member experiences and leverage real-time data analytics for scalable quality performance.

The adoption of Genesys solutions has allowed Modivcare to streamline member transportation scheduling, leading to improved operational efficiency and service quality.

Since partnering with Genesys for its contact center transformation, Modivcare has witnessed notable improvements in member and teammate experience metrics, including an impressive 86% increase in teammate retention. By utilizing Genesys Cloud Workforce Engagement Management (WEM), Modivcare benefits from advanced quality management tools, speech and text analytics, and gamification techniques that boost teammate engagement and ultimately enable the delivery of seamless member experiences.

These initiatives, coupled with the implementation of Genesys Web Messaging to enhance agent efficiency in handling member inquiries, have contributed to substantial cost savings totaling $17 million to date. This demonstrates the tangible benefits of the Modivcare digital transformation journey with Genesys.

Congratulations again to the teams at Western Sydney University, Zurich Insurance, National Domestic Violence Hotline, Virgin Atlantic, Kiwibank, Bancolombia, Global Networks Solutions, NetApp and Modivcare!