The APAC region has seen an unprecedented surge in digital transformation initiatives across multiple industries in recent years. As a dynamic hub for economic growth and technological innovation, it would be safe to assume these projects would make the region a frontrunner in efficiency.

The problem with hasty digitisation

However, despite emerging from a desire to remain agile and competitive, the result of the initiatives has not been as intended for many businesses. New technologies and digital processes, like channels used by customers to communicate with brands, tend to operate independently, creating a fractured and inconsistent experience. Only 18 percent of businesses in the APAC region have connected the technology and data needed to create an end-to-end customer journey.

How the banking sector avoids the problem

The banking sector in particular is attempting to combine the adoption of technological innovations with an increased focus on customer experience during transactions. This means that businesses are prioritising a seamless customer journey when it comes to deploying new initiatives.

One solution gaining momentum in the industry is the CCaaS (Contact Centre as a Service) solution, which offers omnichannel customer engagement and does away with the limitations of legacy IT infrastructure. Banks that adopt CCaaS solutions can pave the way for omnichannel experiences and avoid the fractured customer journeys that other industries in the APAC region have no choice but to offer.

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Synergy of Security Bank and Genesys Cloud CX™

Security Bank, a full-spectrum universal bank based in the Philippines, leverages the Genesys Cloud CX™ contact centre application from Genesys – a global leader in AI-powered experience orchestration. The bank has found particular success since handing over the management of inquiries from external customers to this CCaaS solution.

Lucose Eralil, the company’s Head of Enterprise Technology and Operations, said: “We have integrated [Genesys Cloud CX™] all the way from the call centre to CRM to ensure that we can provide both an effective tool with which the call centre manages customers that call in and…an effective [customer] experience.”

Mr Eralil notes that banking in Southeast Asia has become more customer-centric quicker than in other regions because of its “interconnected economy”.

“You can do seamless transactions that span countries across Southeast Asia,” he said. “The whole approach to banking has evolved in the last eight to ten years, and the advent of fintech [companies] and digital banks have only sped that up. What that has done is actually make traditional banks also up their game in the whole digital space.

“It’s about moving from a brick-and-mortar approach of traditional banking to being more omnichannel. That is a combination of the digital channels, the physical channels, and, most importantly, the experience that connects all the channels together.”

Security Bank has not been an exception to the movement towards a customer-focused future. The company decided to switch to the Genesys platform in May 2020, when its workforce had to suddenly start working from home, and its existing platform could not support the transition.

Mr Eralil said: “Genesys had a product that offered a rapid response program that allowed us to migrate all our contact centres to work from home in a three to four-week timeline. This was one of the key things that made us move towards Genesys.”

Genesys Cloud CX™ applications can be installed in a matter of days and then continually evolve through upgrades deployed centrally on a weekly basis. Its intuitive interface also makes it easy for employees to start helping customers as it comes with a minimal learning curve.

The applications come with a Workforce Engagement Management (WEM) feature, which helps enhance customer experiences through streamlined contact centre operations. With capabilities including call and screen recording, quality management, speech & text analytics, and performance-based metrics, businesses can enhance their agent performance and, subsequently, customer satisfaction.

The WEM feature also includes web surveys to gather valuable feedback from customers and workforce management tools to efficiently manage scheduling and real-time monitoring. It has been found to boost agent productivity by 20 percent by visualising KPIs and improving communication between managers and agents.

“The product not only had decades of experience building solutions and embedding customer experience at its core, but also could actually drive an omnichannel contact centre that ensured we could turn calls, emails, and chat into a single conversation and a seamless customer dialogue,” Mr Eralil added.

“If you look at the channels through which you operate as a consumer, you’ve got […] mobile and […] online banking, you’ve got the ATM, you’ve got the branch, you’ve got the contact centre. Now, as a customer, irrespective of which channel you operate from, you want to ensure the journeys are efficient and that, from an experiential aspect, they are consistent and effective.

“What is very important for us is to be able to have customer journeys that realign themselves depending on the channel that people interact with. They should have the same philosophy and the same design approach, even though they get delivered on different channels.”

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Personalised CX

With Genesys Cloud CX™, agents receive both real-time customer interactions, like voice calls and chats, and asynchronous ones, like text messages, emails and social media messages, in a single and consistent interface. They are therefore provided all the context they need to deliver personalised customer experiences. That’s been important for Security Bank.

Mr Eralil said: “The product having excellent CX allows us to manage the external customer experience, and the Workforce Engagement Manager feature allows us to give a much better experience to our internal organisation, the internal customer.

“It definitely is one of the key contributing factors that allows us to drive towards that vision of being the most customer-centric bank in the Philippines.”

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Simple integration

Another thing which attracted Mr Eralil to the Genesys Cloud CX™ product suite was its integration capabilities. The cloud-native architecture allows IT teams to mix and match only the necessary components to their platforms with minimal disruption. This frees up development resources for high-impact projects.

“It has a microservices-based multi-tenant cloud architecture that allows us big flexibility,” said Mr Eralil. “The APIs allow us to have a much better integration with the various systems that drive customer experience, like the CRM and our marketing solutions. Contact centre agents get better and quicker visibility on things like our next best offer.”

Data security

While seamless customer experiences and simple integration are both important, they would arguably be redundant if the technology itself did not have high data security standards. Genesys Cloud CX™ robust encryption, adherence to industry certifications, and support for regulatory requirements ensure that businesses do not compromise on data privacy and security.

“The most important thing, when we look at security, is that it’s HIPAA and PCI compliant. It ensures interactions are seamlessly and securely supported,” said Mr Eralil.

“Trust plays a big part in customer experience, and customers can trust us with the data that they share with us. That’s why the security framework which Genesys Cloud CX™ runs is one of the key things that attracted us towards Genesys.”

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The digital future of the Philippines

Mr Eralil refers to the Philippines as “one of the last frontiers of digital transformation in Southeast Asia”. He says that Security Bank has made significant technological investments to position itself as a digital leader in the country.

He explained: “In today’s digital age, the changing generation is driving banking-as-a-service and banking-as-a-platform onto mobiles and tablets. It’s very important to have a technology stack that allows us to be proactive to customer needs. For us at Security Bank, technology is what underpins the strategy and our targets, both from a revenue and a customer experience perspective. The future that we see in the Philippines and at Security Bank is driven very much by technology.”

The Genesys Cloud CX™ platform is a seamless, all-in-one contact centre solution that allows companies to power deeply connected experiences. Click here to learn how Genesys cloud technology orchestrates banking customer experiences across all channels.