Enabling a cloud-powered future

TSB Bank Limited (TSB) is a 100% New Zealand-owned community bank with 25 branches nationwide. Delivering empathetic and superior customer experience is at the heart of TSB. In 2019, it recorded a customer satisfaction score of 81.3% — the highest of any bank in New Zealand. Continually striving to raise customer satisfaction levels, TSB wanted to explore a contact center platform with more innovative functionalities that could scale with the business to meet future needs.

“The experience we want our TSB customers to feel when they contact us is one where they feel a part of our family, and they feel welcome, listened to and heard,” said Lisa Macnee, Head of Digital and Customer Engagement Center.

Deploying a future-proof contact center

To modernize its contact center platform, TSB wanted to ensure it could offer customers the flexibility to self-serve on the channel of their choice or interact with a live agent for more complex inquiries. “The previous system was good, it was just that it was limited, and we needed to get into the cloud and get in with the 21st century,” said Macnee.

Anticipating the stricter lockdown measures looming in the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, the TSB team accelerated its planned cloud deployment timeline of two months to under two weeks. The ease of deployment with the Genesys Cloud™ platform enabled Datacom, a partner of TSB, to facilitate the migration in under 10 days — all without compromising the potential for future growth and enhanced functionality.

Combining ease of deployment with effortless integration via the cloud allowed TSB to remain a dependable banking partner for customers throughout the unprecedented lockdown period when they were unable to visit a branch for their banking needs.

“We’ve been able to maintain and increase our NPS score to a +71 through COVID-19, and we know that that’s through the things we’ve been able to do with Genesys Cloud,” she added.

Empowering and engaging a remote workforce

Migrating to the Genesys Cloud platform resolved two crucial business continuity requirements: the ability to enable TSB employees to work from home securely and easily scale the business on demand. TSB was able to immediately transition its 65 agents to a work-from-home environment to adhere to the stringent security and compliance regulations governing banking institutions.

“We went from our old system to Genesys Cloud, remote working through COVID-19, in something like five days. It was incredible; it was outrageous; and we could not have done this without our partner — Genesys,” said Macnee.

TSB scaled IT capacity swiftly with Genesys Cloud, increasing its agent count by 30 people without facing any licensing hurdles. All agents were onboarded remotely and trained to operate in a work-from-home environment. Despite call volumes spiking by 40% to 50% during the lockdown period, TSB contact center agents delivered personalized customer experiences from the safety of their homes.

“There are so many things that are possible with Genesys Cloud that weren’t possible before. Remote working, for a start, was a godsend through COVID-19,” said Macnee.

In addition, the ability to change auto-attendant messages on demand gave TSB the flexibility it needed during a time of crisis. “The Genesys Cloud platform delivered and TSB avoided any serious reduction in its ability to serve its customers during the crisis. In fact, the experience brought the bank closer to the people it serves,” said Hamish Archer, General Manager of Technology at TSB Bank.

Delivering an effortless omnichannel experience

Before moving to the Genesys Cloud, the surge in customer calls would have resulted in high abandonment rates. The callback feature ensures an integrated experience that lets customers schedule a callback at any time — from any channel. “We reduced abandonment rate by 20% with the new callback feature, which is phenomenal,” said Macnee. The indirect benefit for the bank is the cost savings on its toll-free line.

Another feature that has been well received is the IVR, which enables customers to identify themselves and receive prompt responses to general banking queries. Transitioning to a digital experience has allowed TSB to use Genesys Cloud and ensure customers are routed to the agent with the best-suited expertise, no matter which channel they choose. And that has created an effortless, unified experience. The cloud platform gives TSB a future-ready infrastructure to seamlessly support the integration of new applications and functionalities to deliver exceptional customer experiences.

“The Genesys Cloud migration was a really terrific example of commitment, agility, communication and all that other good stuff that you ever experience with a project of this size,” concluded Macnee.