CUSTOMER PROFILE
Regional Australia Bank is a customer-owned bank that has been helping regional Australians achieve their lifestyle goals for almost 50 years. Regional Australia Bank maintains a branch network across 38 towns throughout regional New South Wales (NSW) and has grown to be one of the premier banking alternatives to the ‘big four’ banks.
Headquartered in Armidale, Australia
- Transition to scalable, cloud-based solution
- Deliver consistent, frictionless customer experiences without reducing headcount
- Contact centre managers can easily listen to call recordings and deliver instant coaching and training to agents
- Lets Regional Australia Bank keep smaller regional branches open by pivoting staff into contact centre operations
- Integration with Microsoft Teams
Regional Australia Bank was operating on an outdated telephony system and needed to upgrade to a more secure and flexible cloud-based solution that could scale with the business. Implementing NICE CXone let Regional Australia Bank achieve the enhanced functionality, adaptability, and scalability it needed compared to the legacy system, letting it also leverage branch staff as needed to continue to service and support regional towns without reducing its headcount.
01 THE BEFORE
Moving into the future from an outdated solution
Regional Australia Bank was operating on an outdated telephony system to manage its contact centre operations. It was also operating with both Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams in different departments, which created significant challenges for agents trying to transfer calls between departments.
The bank’s contact centre acts as the first point of contact for customers with issues as well as the branch network, and is supported by more than 30 full- time agents, who field more than 600–700 calls per day on average.
02 DESIRE TO CHANGE
Changing rate of digital adoption
To keep pace with the rate of digital transformation across the banking and finance industry, and to maintain compliance with changing security and privacy requirements, Regional Australia Bank needed to upgrade its system to a more secure and flexible cloud-based solution that could scale with the business.
In addition, it needed a solution that would let it decentralize its contact centre operations and better leverage branch staff as needed to ensure it could continue to service and support regional towns without reducing its headcount. The solution also needed to be compatible with Microsoft Teams so Regional Australia Bank could streamline its interdepartmental communication and call transfers.
“Transitioning to CXone was a critical step in Regional Australia Bank’s journey to streamline the customer and agent experiences; it lets Regional Australia Bank deliver a better experience while maintaining the personal touch of a regional lender. With CXone, Regional Australia Bank can achieve more valuable insights into its productivity as well as realise more functionality for growth that it didn’t have previously.”
“Working with NICE and Generation-e has been one of the best third-party relationships Regional Australia Bank has ever had. NICE CXone was the ideal cloud-based solution; it has empowered Regional Australia Bank to achieve significant business benefits now and into the future.”
SENIOR MANAGER—BRANCH OPERATIONS
REGIONAL AUSTRALIA BANK
03 THE SOLUTION
Greater functionality and improved training
After assessing several solutions on the market, Regional Australia Bank identified NICE CXone as the ideal choice based on its scalability, compatibility with Microsoft Teams, and enhanced functionality and adaptability compared to the legacy system. The solution was implemented with the support of NICE partner, Generation-e.
CXone makes it easier for Regional Australia Bank to manage and train its staff than the previous system, which was essential to support the organization with its decentralized contact centre operations. Its quick-access supervisor functions let Regional Australia Bank’s contact centre managers easily listen to call recordings and assist agents and other team members as needed. This lets Regional Australia Bank deliver instant coaching and training for agents, a significant improvement on its legacy system, which suffered delays when finding and uploading call recordings.
CXone also lets Regional Australia Bank record its outbound calls, which it couldn’t do on its previous system.
04 THE RESULTS
Scalability to support regional centres
Since implementing NICE CXone, Regional Australia Bank has achieved greater insight into its customer experience with the introduction of analytics around customer sentiment. This helps its contact centre agents better understand and respond to customer enquiries. CXone also lets Regional Australia Bank easily record notices to advise on longer-than-average wait times, which has been essential for the bank’s customer communications throughout the pandemic and major flood events.
In addition, CXone facilitates enhanced reporting and analytics for Regional Australia Bank into its teams and productivity, which has delivered greater functionality for growth across its network. Regional Australia Bank’s contact centre agents are the first point of resolution for inbound enquiries, with 80 per cent of calls ideally resolved without needing to transfer. With CXone, Regional Australia Bank can better staff its distributed contact centre and move towards its 80 per cent service-level agreement (SLA) goal.
Regional Australia Bank is committed to supporting regional communities and keeping branches, employment, and families in the towns it operates in. It also manages a community partnership program supporting local organizations, donating one per cent of the average bank balance per year to participating organizations.
Transitioning to CXone has helped Regional Australia Bank to maintain its headcount in regional centres. In many of the locations that the bank operates in, it’s the only financial institution in town. CXone’s simplicity in its set up and ability to train agents has been ideal for Regional Australia Bank, as it has let the bank keep smaller, regional branches open by pivoting its branch staff into contact centre operations as branch transactions reduced throughout the pandemic.
05 THE FUTURE
Continued growth and omnichannel expansion
Regional Australia Bank is currently looking to expand its operations with the introduction of banking as a service, supported by CXone functionality including interactive voice response (IVR). Regional Australia Bank is also looking to expand its use of the text and webchat functions for more optimized use of its omnichannel offering for customers.
