An American multinational financial services corporation increases one-time grants by implementing a new feature on their donor website.
SITUATION
Our client, an American multinational financial services corporation, had a critical customer satisfaction issue. There was an absence of a function to cancel grant recommendations by donors online within their donor website. Historically, this process necessitated interaction with a service representative, contributing to increased call volumes and extending handle times. Analysis of Virtual Assistant dialogues and 'Voice of the Customer' surveys over a two-year span revealed a pressing need for enhancement: over 12,000 grant cancellation requests were logged and related inquiries constituted 12% of all Virtual Assistant conversations in Q4 of the second year. This scenario emphasized the requirement for an improved donor experience and operational efficiency by enabling self-service functionalities for grant cancellations.
“The team’s ability to successfully implement this feature before “giving season” has significantly boosted customer satisfaction. The ease of use and added functionality have led to a remarkable increase in customer adoption rates.”
– Client Product Owner
Everforth Apex initiated a strategic collaboration to tackle this bottleneck, diligently engaging with stakeholders to ascertain the technical requirements and project deliverables. Through our methodical approach, we effortlessly decomposed complex tasks into manageable stories within a Scrum framework, exemplifying our commitment to efficiency and clarity. This approach facilitated bi-weekly deliverables, continuous integration, and responsive adaptations to feedback, ensuring alignment with project goals. Key modifications were concentrated on three main components: the Angular-based donor website UI and two Spring Boot applications—the Grants microservice and the XTRAC Workflow microservice. This structured, yet flexible, method of working allowed for parallel development across components with critical integrations occurring at carefully planned milestones, ultimately steering the project towards timely and successful completion.
RESULT
Everforth Apex successfully deployed the Cancel ASAP Grant feature, a milestone that coincided with the commencement of the Giving Season. This innovation realized a notable adoption rate with 1,420 unique donors utilizing the feature for 1,824 grant cancellations. It also underpinned a significant uptick in Virtual Assistant self-service rates, witnessing a surge from 62.34% to 82.76% for one-time grants in a single month. The ensuing operational efficiencies registered a tangible reduction in call volumes by approximately 4.5%. Feedback gathered post-launch has been overwhelmingly positive. The President of our client’s company praised the initiative at an all-company meeting, highlighting it as a pioneering step towards empowering donors with self-service capabilities.
