Southern Cross Credit Union Boosts Customer Engagement thanks to Vonage

Their customer-led strategy means that people and conversations are at the center of everything they do, and that is why delivering high-level customer service over the phone was among their top priorities. 

SCCU was the first credit union in the Northern NSW region to adopt Salesforce Service Cloud Voice. The organization has been heavily investing in more streamlined digital solutions, like Vonage Fusion to better support their customers across Australia and to continue expanding their reach without compromising on the quality of service they offer.

“Over the past few years, we had not only been growing as a credit union, but, like everyone else, we were forced to adjust the way we do business when the pandemic hit. Consequently, our call center became a much bigger focus. Our customers were accustomed to personalized service, so without the possibility of face-to-face contact, they were reaching out to tell us they needed other options,” explains Tara Armbruster, Customer Service Centre Manager, SCCU. “We already had Salesforce as our CRM platform, but we knew that what we were previously doing just wasn’t working anymore. We contacted Vonage and they showed us what was possible by integrating Vonage Fusion with its deep integration capabilities with the Salesforce CRM we already had in place.” 

Seamless Integration, Enhance Customer Service

Before the integration, a Customer Service Center agent at SCCU could be on a phone call with a customer and would need to work through three or four different platforms to ensure the customer’s needs were met. As customer needs evolved, and SCCU grew, more and more customers started using voice and digital channels over in-person visits. Wait times and call times were not only increasing, but also the overall customer experience began to suffer. With Vonage, SCCU was  able to build internal and external communications workflows integrated with existing applications to gather all relevant customer history and information into one single view to create exceptional experiences for both customers and employees.

“Our Customer Service Center agents were in need of a more seamless, customer-forward solution. We realized part of the solution needed to include the ability to seamlessly move through a customer’s data, while keeping the call time at a minimum. Integrating our Vonage solution directly with Salesforce enabled us to have a phone call through Salesforce and that made all the difference as agents were able to move through the customer data seamlessly, without having to switch to multiple platforms.”

Uninterrupted Service

SCCU personalized service and enhanced customer engagement keep them competitive with the larger credit unions - and their customers coming back. 

“We are competing with other call centers that have sometimes more than double of our staff, so we wanted to ensure that everything - from quality assurance to engagement histories to ease of use - were part of this solution to allow us to concentrate on the personalized conversation,” said Armbruster. “We decided to make the transition to Vonage Fusion but also needed  to ensure the implementation was completely seamless  to the customer without any downtime. The amount of support from Vonage before and  after the roll-out was paramount, and Vonage was nothing but hands-on throughout the whole process. The crossover was simple and we had a new phone system, completely integrated with Salesforce, all in one day."

Added Insight

Recalls Armbruster, “When our customers could walk into our Financial Service Centers, we could interact with them more easily, even get to know them by name and we could easily recall or pull up any data we had about them in order to provide the best customer experience. But as more and more interactions started with a phone call, we weren’t able to do that anymore. Additionally, we were unable to get any important data, aside from wait calls and maybe some additional data points.” 

“With Vonage Fusion, including its integration with Salesforce Service Cloud working together for us, our team has access to a dynamic dashboard to see what is happening with each customer. When a call comes in, we know exactly who that person is, so we can pull up their data before even saying hello and we feel like we are one step ahead. The platform gives us control about what we want to see all in one place. We are able to generate reports on gaps we see to help coach our staff and improve the overall customer experience. We can even capture data from a simple customer inquiry which helps us really engage and connect with the customer in a way we weren’t able to do before.”

Discover how Vonage unified communications and contact center solutions together can transform how your business communicates and operates from the office or anywhere, providing enormous flexibility, ensuring business continuity and enhancing customer engagement.