How UnionBank is modernizing the customer experience with Twilio

How UnionBank is modernizing the customer experience with Twilio

UnionBank of the Philippines has been forging a path in the Philippines using emerging technology to create financial solutions. They consider themselves a tech company rather than just a bank, and UnionBank is using Twilio’s platform to help transform banking in the Philippines.

Trailblazing for the customer benefit

UnionBank has always been amongst the first to embrace technological innovations to empower their customers. The organization is committed to modernizing and digitizing the customer experience and doesn’t hesitate to challenge the norm to do so. Customers are the anchor of their transformation - they are obsessed with their customers for the purpose of delivering fast, complete and effective customer support in all touch points.

A technology company with banking services

The transformation to focus on technology didn’t happen overnight. UnionBank took steps beyond their usual habits to get to know employees and customers. They became obsessed with delivering top-notch services, and adaptability became part of their DNA. UnionBank believes that banking is built on trust, and they value customer trust as the top priority. That doesn’t just mean securing the account, but also delivering personalized, reliable, frictionless experiences and interfaces, access at any point, and convenience for their customers.

Shifting to the cloud

As they ramped up their technology investments, one of UnionBank’s significant milestones was to transform their contact center platform, shifting from on-premise to 100% cloud. UnionBank collaborated closely with Twilio Professional Services to accelerate the design and implementation of their programmable contact center. With tailored expert guidance and custom code built by Twilio Professional Services to support UnionBank's use cases and complex integration requirements, UnionBank achieved their main goals of:

• Increasing self-service automation to 55%
• Reducing average handle time
• High availability
• Increasing platform scalability and data accuracy
• Increasing first call resolution

Because of the transformation they’ve had, they now have an open API strategy that provides access to data, granting access to the power of analytics to understand customer behavior and requirements. These insights reveal what customers want, and how they want to be serviced.

The benefits of working with Twilio

Customer preferences are ever changing and evolving. What might be a requirement today may not be relevant tomorrow. This is why UnionBank personalizes products and solutions with consideration to scaling. By shifting to the cloud, they are better able to service customers, as well as improve platform availability, since their contact center is now fully in the cloud and powered by Twilio.

As the bank’s customer base continuously grows, they must continue to find innovative ways to continue servicing them effectively and efficiently. The contact center transformation not only supported their digital agenda but it also highlighted their competitive advantage. Their platform has already realized many benefits by using Twilio, including:

• 60% more self-service features through the IVR to empower customers, with more features to come
• Contact center has an optimal user interface to help assist customers better
• Additional improvements in resource line balancing and quality and speed of handling customers
• Auto case creation creates a case as soon as the call comes in
• Plug-and-play architecture to easily revise the IVR flow and and add self-service functions
• Customers in queue are informed of how long they’ll wait before they can speak to a customer service representative
• Easily view contact center metrics such as speed of answer in real time

In 2020, 12% of customer service was digital and 88% was voice. In 2022, an impressive 60% of customer service is digital.

Summary

UnionBank of the Philippines is one the leaders in personalized banking services and has always been one of the first to embrace technological innovations that empower customers. They continue to innovate to provide personalized, best-in-class solutions. And with the help of Twilio, they will continue to lead the future of banking and offer the best service to their customers.

Lauren Suen is the Senior Customer Marketing Manager in APJ for Twilio. She can be reached at lsuen [at] twilio.com.

Angel Alvarez is the Head of Unified Communication and Collaboration at UnionBank of the Philippines.