CUSTOMER PROFILE
01 Before
A large contact center with an even larger list of touchpoints
Itau Unibanco is the largest private bank in Brazil, offering hundreds of products that go well beyond basic financial services. The bank aims to boost value for shareholders, support enterprise growth, and help its own employees grow professionally and personally along the way. These efforts are supported by a team of 10,000 agents in the bank’s contact centers who assist customers in signing up for services, navigating the tools, and addressing any challenges that arise.
With an agent team that large, ensuring everyone has the most up-to-date information and the latest customer service best practices is both critical and increasingly difficult. Historically, Itau had used a wide suite of tools and platforms to get agents what they needed. This created situations where both agents and customers needed to access a high number of pages in order to work through a single issue.
“We discovered in one operation that 70 pages had to be visited to work through it,” says Thiago Shigueo Miyahira, engineering manager for Itau’s contact centers.
02 Desire to change
Building a strong AI approach for an optimized customer experience
Itau’s contact center team began to look for ways to consolidate information and streamline interactions to increase efficiency. A new CX platform seemed like a smart approach, but the right tool would need to check several boxes:
able to integrate with other key platforms, support a migration to the cloud, and perhaps most importantly, it would need to align with Itau’s AI goals.
AI is an essential piece of the bank’s long-term strategy, and the contact center needed a platform that could help them experiment with the possibilities and then implement concrete tools and approaches. CXone Mpower emerged as the best fit for both Itau’s current and future needs around optimizing workflows, enhancing customer experience, and integrating AI.
03 NiCE solution
Reduced cognitive load supported by AI
Itau rolled out CXone Mpower with the goal of improving NPS, increasing first call resolution, and overall enhancing customer experience. Miyahira said change management was important from the outset.
“We had to convince all stakeholders about the benefits and stability the new tools would bring,” he said. “This is why NiCE’s speed to market was a good match for us; we needed results to show fast.”
By focusing on change management from the outset, Itau achieved strong user adoption. The implementation of CXone Mpower quickly offered improvements in operations for Itau, proving ROI early on and encouraging broader use of the platform.
With CXone Mpower, agents were able to greatly reduce the number of screens or tabs they needed available for individual interactions. Instead of clicking back and forth to keep track of a customer’s situation and needs, agents now have everything they need in one spot. This betters customer service while reducing overall handling time. As agents are better able to serve customers efficiently, first call resolution has increased.
While Itau is still piloting AI features in conjunction with other key Microsoft programs, they’ve already improved agent workload with AI. When customers are transferred to an agent after initially conversing with a chatbot, the agent is provided with a concise summary of that interaction. Agents previously had a 20–30 page document with scripts for various situations. Itau is testing how to leverage the AI summary to make suggestions from the scripts, so the agents don’t need to search. Though Itau’s initial goal was to improve NPS, they are now migrating to a CSAT model to track experience scores of specific interactions, whether with agents or at bank branches. The tools in CXone Mpower are making this change possible.
04 Results
Reduced handle time and fewer interactions
After switching to CXone Mpower, Itau has met many of its initial goals and is better positioned for an AI-centric future. Average handle time has reduced by 15% across the contact center. The bank sees 13% fewer interactions overall thanks to the chatbots and digital self-service options. Miyahira says customer experience has improved overall as well.
A consolidated approach to CX and workforce management has led to reduced infrastructure costs while still giving Itau a tool to experiment with for future growth.
“During and after implementation, it was a NiCE surprise to be able to test new features and validate our hypotheses with less effort than anticipated,” Miyahira said.
05 Future
Securing a spot as an industry leader
Itau’s agents report they enjoy the new platform and feel they can solve challenges faster. The team is excited about developing ways to solve customer problems more quickly and continue integrating with other departments and tools at the bank. AI continues to be a priority for Itau. Miyahira hopes to eventually reduce overall headcount at the contact center with AI helping them design the right-sized team. Pilot programs involving AutoSummary and Copilot are ongoing, moving the bank toward a future as an industry leader in customer service.
“NiCE found a way to consider our future needs, ones we didn’t even know yet,” Miyahira said. “NiCE is helping us reach the level of other major players in the industry.”
