Standard Bank is one of Africa’s largest banks, with over 50,000 employees serving more than 18 million customers in 20 countries. Founded in 1862, the bank has grown into a leading financial services company offering retail and commercial banking, wealth management, advisory services and more.
Standard Bank’s contact centre operations form the foundation for customer service delivery across various banking portfolios. With over 5,500 agents handling almost 40 million customer interactions annually, the contact centre was a critical touchpoint. However, the bank’s previous on-premises contact centre platform was nearing end of life, creating significant operational risks as well as limitations to achieving digital transformation objectives.
Looking to the future
As Standard Bank accelerated its journey to becoming a cloud-first company, modernizing its contact center was a key milestone. The bank evaluated several solutions and identified three main criteria for its selection process:
- First, they were looking for a comprehensive cloud contact center solution with robust omnichannel capabilities.
- Second, the new platform had to offer optimization opportunities through advanced analytics and data-driven insights.
- Finally, they prioritized a solution that supports agile delivery methods and enables rapid innovation cycles in the future.
Amazon Connect’s cloud-native architecture and pay-as-you-go pricing model align with Standard Bank’s goals to optimize the costs of its contact center operations. The service eliminates the need to deploy and manage an on-premises software infrastructure that faces end-of-life and end-of-support challenges over time, and instead provides continuously updated cloud capabilities.
“We were confident that Amazon Connect would significantly reduce the historical challenges of deploying software,” said Bryan Botha, CIO (Personal and Private Banking) at Standard Bank.
Remarkably, Standard Bank completed this massive migration in less than a year – a feat that would normally take the bank three to four years – and there was no major service disruption to customers during the transition.
Amazon Connect provided Standard Bank with the advanced analytics and reporting capabilities it needed to gain deeper insights and increase operational efficiency. Amazon Connect captures comprehensive interaction data across voice and chat channels and uses built-in analytics to provide actionable insights.
“We can analyse why customers call repeatedly and this has shaped our digital service strategy – something we previously lacked quality data for,” said Brett Bossenger, Head of Voice at Standard Bank.
Digital transformation as a guarantee of success
After Standard Bank switched to Amazon Connect, its customers found it more convenient to communicate across multiple channels. The switch resulted in a 56% increase in chat volume and a 7% decrease in voice calls. However, Standard Bank handled even the remaining voice calls more efficiently, improving response times by 6% and reducing missed calls by 42%.
For agents and their managers, processes such as call monitoring, coaching, and feedback have become streamlined and more effective with Amazon Connect features.
“The system has provided agents with real-time performance data, promoting their professional development. We have been able to accredit our entire team through training programs while maintaining service quality,” said Bossenger.
Customer sentiment metrics such as Net Promoter Score (NPS) have also steadily increased by over 20 points after the migration. The bank has maintained its high level of service as analytics and insights enable greater operational efficiency.
“Amazon Connect has enabled us to truly take ownership of our contact center business and transform the way we run it. We have taken that responsibility seriously and have seen the results in outstanding customer and operational results,” said Bossenger.
Visualize what comes next
As the bank continues to pioneer, Standard Bank is leveraging Amazon Connect’s continuous innovation to unlock new opportunities. Easily making changes, testing other Amazon Connect features and optimising consumption-based costs is part of their ongoing product lifecycle.
“Our previous change cycles were lengthy and costly. With Amazon Connect, we have achieved a speed of execution that was previously unimaginable,” said Nazreen Boda, Head of Client Solutions.
With Amazon Connect, the bank has been able to streamline processes, increase efficiency and ultimately deliver a better customer experience. Standard Bank’s customer-centric digital transformation, powered by Amazon Connect, has ushered in a new era of agility and laid the foundation for future market leadership across its diverse financial services offerings.
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