Bendigo Bank is reporting a material uplift in customer service efficiency following the migration of its contact centre operations to Amazon Web Service’s (AWS’s) Connect platform last year.

Since its adoption of the AWS public cloud-based customer contact centre in November 2023, Bendigo reports substantial improvements to key productivity and performance metrics, including a 90 per cent reduction in call wait time complaints, and a 46 per cent reduction in internal call transfers within the customer contact team, and an overall 20 per cent improvement in customer service efficiency.

The efficiency bump has contributed to a reported 17 per cent year-on-year increase in Bendigo’s Net Promoter Score (NPS). As at June 2024, Bendigo, Australia’s second-highest rated major banking institution by NPS, stood at +19.7 NPS, following top-placed ING (+25.3), pollster Roy Morgan reports.

The Bendigo Bank contact centre received more than one million calls last year, the bank reported, with telephony remaining the primary method of inbound contact from customers.

The transition to Connect, completed last November after a six-month migration period, consolidated Bendigo’s contact centre operations, which previously consisted of multiple legacy and on-premises applications, into the scalable AWS service. Resultingly, Bendigo says, this shift has delivered increased  “agility, reliability, and operational efficiency” for its call centre team.

Bendigo said it is making extensive use of the Connect suite, which includes advanced analytics, fraud detection, generative AI (for instance, to generate post-contact summaries), machine learning (used to report data insights into customer sentiment and track ongoing experience), automation and digital engagement functions.

This includes an integrated platform for agents to view and act upon previously logged customer interactions, and near-real time dashboards presenting key interaction metrics and areas for improvement.

Further leveraging the platform, Bendigo said it intends to “improve the experience for callers by streamlining interactions and reducing even more friction points, like on-hold wait times and identification processes”.

Bendigo Bank general manager customer contact Megan Papadopoulos said the contact centre team is tapping collected insights and reporting metrics from these interactions to identify areas for improvement, leading to a “[transformation in] the way data is accessed, presented and interpreted across our operations”.

“This program of work is now arming our people and leaders with all the intelligence needed to make decisions quickly, act with confidence and deliver results for customers.

“The resulting and significant reduction in average handling time over the past 12 months has allowed capacity to be reinvested back into improving overall customer experience.”

Papadopoulos added: “Things like simple configuration to set up target call flows and effective call tagging, and by enhancing call reason data, we’re excited to support the next wave of customer-focused initiatives at the bank.

“And it’s not just our contact centre that’s seeing results. We have more than 50 teams on Amazon Connect across every division in the bank and the wholesale efficiency improvements are contributing to an uplift in our overall service offering.”