Netwealth fast tracks Zendesk and attains industry-leading call wait times

Netwealth has been meeting the average Australian’s financial needs through a flexible online platform that lets clients actively manage their investments, superannuation, and self-managed superannuation funds. Netwealth does this by focusing on the heart of the business—superb customer service.

Pursuing smarter wealth management solutions entails reviewing faulty processes and investing in the right technology. As the business grew, Netwealth realized that it needed to update its legacy customer care system with something scalable and customer-centric.

Growing call volumes overwhelmed the company’s PBX (private branch exchange) phone system and Outlook-based customer service inbox. What’s worse, the company shared this inbox with different departments, and Netwealth’s customer contact center didn’t have a transparent ticketing system, making it difficult to keep track of all customer interactions. “We knew there were a lot of things we were doing that we could do better, so we started to investigate new solutions,” explains Matt Heine, joint managing director for Netwealth.

Finding an effective digital solution

Netwealth found everything it needed to upgrade its customer care system with Zendesk. “It was apparent that we could spend years developing a solution that would do a fraction of what Zendesk could do, right out of the box. We worked with their team to fast-track our development and tailor what we wanted. Since we were coming off an older system, migrating to Zendesk would open up a huge amount of additional capacity,” explains Heine. An AWS-based Zendesk solution was rolled out across email, chat, and voice support in 2020.

An unexpected number of calls

When the pandemic struck, Netwealth was able to adapt swiftly because the new solution was mid-deployment. Australian superannuation laws changed because of the global crisis, leading to an unprecedented number of calls and emails to the Netwealth customer contact center. Suddenly, the company was fielding the highest customer service call volume in its history, attempting to move 300 employees into remote work, without a cloud-based contact center solution.

“We suddenly had to rush the last three to four weeks of our well-designed implementation project into a 48-hour window,” explains Heine. “Despite everything, we were able to deliver almost uninterrupted service to our customers from both an email and phone perspective.”

Lowest call pick up times in the industry

The new Service Division at Netwealth handled the increased query volumes and delivered beyond expectations. It has upheld Netwealth’s exceptional customer service track record. Customers calling in speak to an agent within 40 to 60 seconds. The Service Division team usually resolves 99 percent of call tickets and 90 percent of email queries with a single touch. Agents are now fielding 22,000 queries a month and serve 115,000 individual accounts. These surges over the last year are evidence of the new solutions’ success.

The Service Division system enables Netwealth to track agent assignments, access stored calls and emails quickly, search through them easily, and review clients’ interactions via phone, email, and chat in one place. “The ability to record, access, and store calls and emails makes providing a high level of service very easy. We can track the time it takes to respond to inquiries and avoid situations where inquiries can fall through the cracks as they move to the other parts of the business,” says Heine. This has helped the company build trust and confidence within its customer network.

Increased customer visibility

One of the Service Division solution’s biggest benefits has been transparency. “We have a single customer view, the ability to see where inquiries are, and if there are any issues—none of which we’ve been able to do, historically,” explains Heine. This view includes access to the inquiries’ life cycle as tickets move between departments.

The large volume of data Zendesk collects has given Netwealth insight into customers’ behavior and needs, whether it’s understanding why customers are calling, how often, or even how long the average wait time is.

The high data visibility makes audit compliance and complaints management much simpler. “Audits and reports that used to take me two weeks to compile now only take me a couple of days,” explains Netwealth contact center manager Olivier Quirin.

Educating and empowering customers

Streamlining customer communications makes Netwealth proactive with decision-making. “Take the statistics and information that we’re able to get. We can see when there is a huge amount of inquiries on a particular product feature. We make changes and improvements, so those customers don’t have to call or email about that particular issue anymore,” explains Heine. This allows the company to tailor its product design and development using the wealth of information collected via its many customer touchpoints.

Aside from creating workflows that reduce the ticket numbers around ordinary inquiries, the company uses the information to develop instructive materials for clients. “All the data we’ve collected is helping us identify training opportunities for clients. We’re able to be proactive in dealing with issues that historically might not have been visible,” explains Heine.

Creating new ways to connect with customers

Netwealth’s vision is to meet clients where they are, may it be through instant messaging or social media platforms. In 2021, the company introduced Live Chat, and Heine is confident there’s more change to come. “We want to continue to be like family to our advisors and customers, allowing them to reach out to us anytime,” he says. “Technology is only a means to an end, and that end is to serve our customers better.”