Salary packaging provider builds its own CRM system

Perth-based salary packaging provider Paywise has built and integrated its own CRM platform as part of the migration to an integrated unified communications-as-a-service (UCaaS) and contact centre-as-a-service (CCaaS) solution.

Paywise clients include small, medium and large employers in a range of industries, including government, education, mining, financial services, legal, accounting and human resources.

Paywise had recently cut over to an all-in-one cloud-based telephony, contact centre and CRM solution. However, frequent service outages, dropped calls and poor on-the-ground support from the vendor and its partners were having a significant negative impact on customer experience and operational effectiveness, so the decision was made to replace the solution as quickly as possible.

After completing a comprehensive review and due diligence, Paywise selected RingCentral as the UCaaS and CCaaS replacement, and made the decision to build its own CRM on the strength of RingCentral’s ability to easily integrate with third-party applications.

“With all the API functionality available in the RingCentral platform, we realised we could develop all the CRM functions ourselves on the internal systems we already had and integrate with our telephony and contact centre platform that way,” said Mike Whait, General Manager of IT, Paywise.

An additional advantage in cutting over to RingCentral was the compatibility of the new handsets and headsets already purchased as part of the earlier cloud telephony migration. The result was minimal impact on Paywise end users and minimal deployment costs, and the new RingCentral platform is also operating at a reduced monthly operating cost compared to the former cloud solution.

Paywise used its own in-house development team to build the additional CRM functionality it needed into its existing customer software platform.

“That removed a lot of double handling we were doing, improving our operational efficiency and the speed of our response to customer queries,” Whait said. “It’s given us one source of truth for all our member profiles and reduced our overall call handling times,” said Kelly Fontana, General Manager Operations, Paywise. “The difference it has made for some of our agents blows my mind.”

In the contact centre, the callback feature has been enthusiastically embraced by customers, with between 25 and 40% requesting that service, allowing Paywise to manage peaks and troughs in demand without affecting customer experience. Customers are usually contacting Paywise while at work, so requesting a callback and maintaining their place in the queue is often the preference.

The integration of RingCentral with Paywise’s software platform has enabled Paywise to roll out a 24-hour IVR option for customers to check the balance on their Paywise digital smart cards — which has been invaluable for customers working in remote areas (such as mines and Indigenous communities) without reliable internet access.

Integration with Microsoft Teams, plus a shared contact centre and unified communications platform across the broader organisation, has increased the visibility of the contact centre and improved collaboration and interaction with all parts of the business.

“When there are lots of calls coming in, as a business now we are all involved, and we can interact more easily with our colleagues. Previously we had very limited visibility on what was happening in the contact centre and it was hard to work together,” Fontana said.

Contact centre team leaders are using quality management features to build a picture of the patterns and trends of the agents and can either cherrypick or schedule regular reviews of calls. Sentiment analysis and reporting on calls is giving greater transparency for agents and team leaders, improving both agent and customer experience.

In addition to managing the voice queue, Paywise contact centre agents are also managing live chat, giving customers an alternative channel for routine enquiries. Paywise has plans to use RingCentral’s AI capabilities to automate some of the routine enquiries, including Paywise Card balance checks.

“The more a chatbot can answer the simple questions, the more time our agents can spend talking to customers with more complex needs,” Whait said.