Virgin Money modernises banking with Microsoft Copilot Studio

Making every customer touchpoint count

Virgin Money believes great banking begins with great conversations. That’s why the organisation puts customers at the heart of everything it does, aiming to make every interaction fast, easy and seamless.

“We’re focused on resolving issues at the very first point of contact,” says Alison Lattimer, Head of Customer Service Operations at Virgin Money. “When a customer reaches out, our aim is to resolve their query first time, every time.”

To bring this vision to life, Virgin Money partnered with Microsoft, embracing the power of AI agents with Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Copilot Studio. Together, they developed Redi – an AI-powered agent designed to transform how Virgin Money serves its customers.

“We chose Copilot Studio primarily for the powerful capabilities it offers through the Power Automate platform,” explains Ruaridh Wallace, BizApps Centre of Excellence (COE) Lead at Virgin Money. “What started as basic chatbots in our virtual agents has evolved into a fully integrated AI solution.”

Transforming customer interactions

Redi is reshaping the way Virgin Money connects with its customers, making service more proactive and precise. Whether it’s answering questions or anticipating needs, the AI assistant plays a key role in improving the experience at scale.

Take something as simple as a replacement card notification. When a customer is due to receive a new card, Redi automatically sends an outbound message and confirms their address – a small interaction that delivers big results.

Laura MacLeod, Product Strategy Senior Manager at Virgin Money, reflects, “Engagement for these messages sits at around 54%. That means over half of our customers choose to interact, and of those, 97% complete the journey from start to finish.”

And that impact shows up in the feedback too. “A lot of customers are very satisfied with their experience using Redi,” adds Alison Lattimer. “We see that reflected clearly in our customer satisfaction scores.”

By reducing friction and increasing responsiveness, Redi is building trust, one conversation at a time.

Empowering people, scaling service

While Redi is transforming customer experiences on the front end, it’s also becoming an indispensable ally behind the scenes, supporting Virgin Money’s teams and enabling them to deliver better service, faster.

Alison Lattimer enthuses, “My team sees Redi as another colleague. It’s the one who passes a customer to them when a human touch is needed.”

By handling routine requests and triaging more complex ones, Redi frees up employees to focus on what matters most - delivering empathy, resolving high-impact queries and building relationships.

And the benefits don’t stop there. Redi also delivers actionable insights that help the organisation continuously refine its services.

Corinne McCulloch, Team Manager at Virgin Money, explains, “By using the insights that Redi provides, we’re able to build on the customer experience.” 

“It gives us the scalability and reliability we need – all within a native service layer,” adds Ruaridh Wallace.

Building the future of finance

With Microsoft’s support, Virgin Money is accelerating into the future, modernising its services, streamlining operations and setting a new standard for customer experience in financial services.

Laura MacLeod says, “We’ve been able to move away from old-style chatbots and toward more conversational banking. We’ve consolidated multiple virtual assistants into a single, smarter experience.”

The impact hasn’t gone unnoticed. Laura MacLeod continues, “We won an award for Best Use of AI in Financial Services, in the cards, payments and services category.” 

But for Virgin Money, the journey is just beginning. The team continues to build on its success with innovation, purpose and customer value at the core.

“Having integrated chatbots and back-end services allows us to deliver the kind of customer value and experience we truly pride ourselves on at Virgin Money,” concludes Ruaridh Wallace.

Learn more about Virgin Money’s inspiring AI transformation in this episode of the Microsoft Customer Series.