“Chat was implemented to make sure customers didn’t need to wait and some questions could be answered with a straight-forward ‘yes’ or ‘no’. That’s our philosophy, we want to be fast, but have agents that actually care and empathise with our customer on the other end of the phone.”
Povilas Ciuplys
Chief Customer Officer at TransferGo
“Zendesk is intuitive to use, it’s a really nice interface, simple – it’s not rocket science!”
Povilas Ciuplys
Chief Customer Officer at TransferGo
HQ
London, UK
Founded
2013
Agents
100
CSAT
90%
25%
Increase in agent productivity
25%
Decrease in cost per transaction
37%
Of written communication automated
4.7
Trustpilot rating, highest amongst competitors
Money transfer app TransferGo
“We’re working with a very sensitive topic”
Money is always a sensitive issue. It often results in deep-rooted emotions and anxieties – never mind when you are far away from your family in a country you don’t call home. TransferGo was founded 10 years ago by four migrant friends who met at university in the UK and understood the challenges faced by ex-pats living away from their home countries. Justinas, Daumantas, Edvinas and Arnas wanted to make international transfers fairer and cheaper for the hard-working people who often simply just wanted to send cash abroad quickly to support their families.
“We’re working with a very sensitive topic,” said Povilas Ciuplys, who joined the business four years ago as Customer Support Director before being promoted to Chief Customer Officer in August 2021. “Our customers send money for various reasons, leading to us processing thousands upon thousands of transfers every month. And every transfer has a unique story.”
“People feel they can trust us,” said Ciuplys who looks after around 100 agents across call centres in London, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Ukraine. “We have to remember there’s a human being at the other end of the email or chat. So when we promise the money will be transferred in 30 minutes, we have to give them information fast, updating what is happening and making sure we’re there to pick up the phone or answer the chat.”
Ciuplys described how Ukraine has become a big part of its business since the Russian invasion in 2022. “From day one, there were very sensitive cases as the banking infrastructure was crumbling. I was very happy that we had people who cared and worked fast to support them, whilst remaining empathetic and human. The same happened after the Turkish/Syrian earthquake tragedy, families abroad wanted to support their loved ones quickly.”
Automation and messaging
Ciuplys is a firm believer that empathetic customer service is not just about the end consumer, but also about supporting TransferGo employees. “Employee experience drives customer experience,” he said, pointing to how automation has helped ease the employee workload to help agents concentrate on serving more complicated customer queries that may require a sympathetic conversation.
When TransferGo implemented Zendesk’s Chat functionality with automation on top Ciuplys said the company didn’t roll out the technology to save money: “Efficiency is a side effect. It was implemented to make sure customers didn’t need to wait for questions could be answered with a straight-forward ‘yes’ or ‘no’. That’s our philosophy, we want to be fast, but have agents that actually care and empathise with our customer at the other end of the phone.”
“We’ve made further investment into Zendesk AI, which we expect to have a good impact on productivity, customer experience, and employee experience. For now, we’re looking at our One Touch tickets data and expect to further increase written communication automation and reach 50% fully automated support by the middle of 2024.“
The next phase for TransferGo is to set up asynchronous messaging where the customer and agent can start, stop, and resume a conversation on their own terms – just like speaking with a friend or family member via WhatsApp.
“We’ve reached the point where messaging is the most natural way to talk outside of the business landscape. More often than not nowadays, people would rather record voice notes than have a call, so this social interaction feels very natural and I see this as the future for our business. Asynchronous messaging will likely become a global trend; aiding in efficiency and improving the agent experience, as you have the conversation history right in front of you”.
360-degree view of the customer
TransferGo first implemented the Zendesk Suite in 2017 and when Ciuplys joined the company four years ago the business was beginning to scale at speed. As the face of customer service, Ciuplys was focused on solving challenges related to ticket routing, automation, and solidifying the organisation's people function.
“Zendesk is intuitive to use, it’s a really nice interface, simple – it’s not rocket science!”
“The 360-degree view of the customer helps us understand whether this is the first time communicating with a customer. If it’s the second time, well, something probably didn’t go well during the first interaction. This knowledge helps set expectations and personalise the customer experience,” said Ciuplys who pointed to Zendesk’s vast choice of API integrations as “critical” to business success after seamlessly plugging the cloud-based Lokalise translation management system into the Zendesk Suite using Sunshine Conversations, which is clearly integral to an international company.
Ciuplys describes how his agents can quickly change their approach to service using the Zendesk Suite: “We can change the tone of the automated response if that doesn’t seem to be working, or if a customer doesn’t reply to us by, for example, midday, it’s easy to experiment and find the best time to reach our customers.”
Turning a bad experience into a positive one
By using Zendesk’s data analytics tool Explore, Ciuplys and his team are able to spot red flags and zoom in on strange behaviours and quickly identify if there’s a deeper-rooted problem.
Ciuplys also described how the platform also allows TransferGo to identify customers with a high risk of churning and quickly turn a disgruntled customer into a happy customer.
“Sometimes customers make a mistake, such as spelling a surname incorrectly and the money comes back to us and we have to figure it out,” he explained, noting that when money bounces back it can be very frustrating for the end-consumer. “So if they’re identified as being high-risk of churn, we don’t just send an email; we call them to apologise for the bad experience and explain it’s because of due diligence and processes for their financial safety so they can trust us. I’ve seen people leave a bad review that they’d never use us again, but once we’ve been in touch, within two week’s they’re using TransferGo again.”
“CSAT isn’t actually the goal for us,” he continued, which stands at 90%. “It’s an outcome to show how well we’re doing the job. It’s about doing everything to make sure people’s money paid into us, is paid out, no matter what.”
