Leading New Zealand bank transforms customer experience with Dynamics 365

Before implementing Dynamics, Westpac NZ operated via a traditional on-premise CRM environment, which was manual, time-consuming, and labour intensive. As many as 5 million fragments of customer data were spread out across different platforms. Gaining data access, reporting, and insights was nearly impossible. “When our bankers wanted to get an answer from a credit officer about lending a customer money, they had to fill out spreadsheets and documents, print them out, and physically mail them,” says Deyna List, Westpac NZ’s Chief Experience Officer for Business Services. “For customers living in a remote part of the country, this often meant a wait of over 48 hours before we were able to answer their request.” 

 In 2008, Westpac NZ realized it needed to automate, in order to enhance its customer experience and better enable innovation. “We partnered with Microsoft to implement Dynamics on-premise, with the goal of automating our processes so we could better serve our customers,” says List. “Then, in 2018, we wanted to transition to an even more customer-centric business strategy, with a more consistent approach to customer onboarding, follow-up, and personalization. We introduced the cloud-based Dynamics 365 Customer Service and Sales modules, and our understanding of the full breadth of the possibilities has been growing ever since.”

Transforming data security and quality

Using Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales and Customer Service, Westpac NZ created a single customer data source that bridged its on-premise CRM environment with the new cloud-based platform. 

“Our aim is to eventually replace our on-premise CRM environment with Dynamics 365 entirely. However, while the transition is in progress, we created a real-time interface between the cloud and our mainframe systems,” says Bremner. “Now, any update that's done in our on-premise environment is replicated in Dynamics 365 in real-time.” This means that while both the cloud and on-prem platforms are in use, the Westpac NZ team can add customer data in either and still be assured data accuracy.

Dealing with sensitive payment information, data security is a top priority for Westpac NZ. “Being an Australian-owned bank based in New Zealand, we have to meet not only our own data security regulations, but also Australian regulations,” says Bremner. “When saving customer data in the cloud, we have to follow our internal and external policies to ensure its security. In the first year our new system was live, there were five separate audits done on our implementation. We were able to prove a high level of data security each time.”

Accuracy and quality of data are also paramount. “Several different applications across the business rely on customer data, which means it cannot be outdated or wrong,” explains Westpac NZ’s Dynamics Tech Lead for Business Services, Mo Alwani. “Inaccuracies can cause issues with our reporting, with our capital calculations, and ultimately with the decisions we make in regards to our customers.” 

Thanks to Dynamics 365, Westpac NZ’s technical team is assured a high level of data accuracy with an automated data validation process. Where once a team of auditors would manually check the data, now reconciliations are run automatically on a daily basis. “We can compare the data quality in real-time, ensure inconsistencies are picked up, and reassure both our regulators and our team that the bank’s customer data is of the highest quality,” says Alwani. “The benefits reach all the way to our customers, who ultimately experience a more accurate and timely service.”

This level of automation has transformed the bank’s credit submission process. With manual checks no longer needed, the time taken to process loan approvals has been cut from 500 hours in 2019, down to 100 hours in 2021. This new automated credit submissions process has also allowed Westpac NZ’s credit managers to focus their efforts on serving their customers, for example, coaching them on their credit. 

Process automation proved invaluable when the COVID-19 crisis emerged. “COVID-19 restrictions meant the vast majority of our team transitioned to working from home,” says Westpac NZ Software Product Owner, David Quinn. “Under our previous spreadsheet-based system, processing loan applications for our customers without physically being in the office would have been incredibly challenging. With the new system, we were able to continue to be there for our customers throughout the uncertainty of COVID-19.”

Saving 3,850 hours weekly with automation

Westpac NZ also introduced Power Platform, which the bank’s highly capable technical team have used to transform processes throughout the business. “Power Apps has opened up the door for us to quickly develop new applications, while Power Platform has allowed us to better serve our customers with more streamlined, automated processes,” says Alwani. The swift development of new applications has been made even swifter by the bank’s embracing of agile working. Agile working in Westpac NZ involves ‘tribes’ that are responsible for delivering specific products or end services to customers. Westpac NZ’s tribes have seen Power Platform’s use cases grow to over 20 initiatives, which the bank sees as a testament to the platform’s ease of use.

The team also used the platform to quickly and simply create a new financial hardship loan approval system. “When the loans team asked us to create a new loan relief approval system, we built a quick mock-up with Power Apps,” Bremner begins. “After they saw the prototype, the guys asked when we could get a fully working tool. We said it was practically done, all we had to do was polish a bit of it and it was good to go.”

This ease of app development meant Westpac NZ was able to have the new system in place before the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. “As our customers have wrestled with financial hardship caused by lockdown restrictions, this loan relief approval system has been heavily used. We were able to quickly and swiftly provide our customers with the financial assistance they needed, in a way we never could have done in the past,” Bremner adds. 

Overall, these new applications and automated initiatives have led to a reduction of up to 7x the hours spent on manual processes. Combined, they are saving Westpac NZ’s nationwide team as many as 3,850 working hours per week, or almost NZD$200,000 weekly. For Westpac NZ, this is time and money that can now be spent supporting their customers to become financially secure, instead.

Looking towards a dynamic future

Since adopting the cloud solution, Westpac NZ has become one of the APAC region’s largest users of Microsoft Dynamics 365. The bank’s technical team runs regular sessions with the Dynamics developers, where Westpac NZ shares new projects and initiatives. “Westpac NZ demonstrates excellent tech intensity. They have built a significant internal team around Dynamics 365, comprising about 80 people, who are driving customer-focused change across the bank,” says Daniel Lund, Senior Customer Success Manager at Microsoft. “They invest in their learning and certification with Microsoft Learn, and they run a popular Dynamics community and hackathons to innovate with the platform. Microsoft is proud to have been with them on the journey for well over a decade.”

Today, almost all Westpac NZ’s products are Microsoft-based. ”Whether it's from a support perspective, or learning about and adopting new features, we’re always on the forefront and keen to explore the newest technologies that Microsoft offers,” shares Shaun Anderson, Westpac NZ’s Tech Area Lead for Business Services. “This is one of the biggest reasons we’re able to provide the best outcome for our customers.”

Even with extensive digital transformation already behind them, Westpac NZ believes there’s plenty still ahead. Plans include using Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement module, which will provide high-quality customer insights. The bank is also working on automating its IT Risk Controls, Security Controls and Observability with Power Platform. “With the Dynamics 365 ecosystem, plus Power Platform, we can achieve things that we never could have imagined,” says Anderson. “We’re always looking to improve, and we look forward to doing so with Microsoft.”