Overview

Brothers Reg and Louis Rix founded CarFinance 247 to meet the growing demand of consumers sourcing their finance online. Their existing CRM system was cumbersome and inefficient, hindering productivity and agent satisfaction. The company sought a modern, flexible, and scalable solution to enhance agent efficiency and improve customer service.

Challenge

CarFinance 247 had developed its own custom CRM system to handle customer interactions, including calls. Over time, the system had become unwieldy and difficult to use, slowing down its contact centre agents.

Being a finance broker, CarFinance 247 works with over 20 finance companies to find the best rates for customers. Each company has its own systems and processes, and it could take new agents six months to fully onboard and start meeting their targets. Some would leave before fully onboarded out of frustration with the system’s steep learning curve.

“There was a lot of complexity to think about while also trying to have a meaningful conversation with customers. It was especially difficult for new starters, who would often find it overwhelming.” Mark Richards, Account Manager, CarFinance 247

Using the old system, agents would perform a vehicle registration search on the caller’s preferred car. This would display the vehicle’s details, which would have to be manually copied and pasted onto another screen. The agent would then click a button and the system would call all of the lenders’ APIs to return quotes, leaving the agent and customer with up to two minutes to fill with small talk.

If the customer wanted another quote, the agent would repeat the process. On occasion, it would be discovered that none of the lenders could offer finance on the caller’s preferred vehicle, resulting in more work for the agent, and disappointment for the customer. This type of process, and the need to work within several different screens was frustrating for all involved, but making changes in the old system was not easy. Nicole Taylor, Head of Product, CarFinance 247 said: 

‍“One of the biggest challenges we faced was not being able to easily change functionality within our system. Sometimes, even the smallest tweaks just were just not possible due to the complexity of things having been built on top of each other. If we were going to make a step-change, we needed to build and move to a new platform.” Nicole Taylor, Head of Product, CarFinance 247 

Solution  

The decision was made to redesign the entire agent experience, making it easier to find information, make updates and better serve customers.

CarFinance 247 looked at various other contact centre solutions but found their offerings to be restrictive.

Nicole said, “We looked at multiple technology providers, but their offerings weren’t overly customisable. We’re quite unique in what we do and how we work. We needed something we could build with.”

“We had experience with Twilio and decided to move to their Twilio Flex cloud-based contact centre platform.”

To develop the new Flex system, CarFinance 247 partnered with Twilio Preferred Delivery Partner, Zing. With Zing acting as an extension of their internal development team, work began reimagining the old quote process.

Rather than agents needing to search for a vehicle, then copying and pasting all the information into another screen and waiting for quotes, Zing streamlined the process by integrating vehicle search and quoting functionality, allowing agents to view the best offers instantly.

Functionality was also added to enable agents to send all quote information to customers via WhatsApp and/or SMS.

Result

Initial calls where all the callers’ details are gathered, which could take up to 45 minutes, are now taking just 15 minutes, thanks to the new system.

"Quoting for customers is so much more efficient. You open up the system and all the information is in front of you." Mark Richards, Account Manager, CarFinance 247

“It just makes everything a lot easier, which allows us to really listen to what people are saying; why they want to change cars and what excites them, rather than worrying about data entry. We can spend the time helping them find the best vehicle at the best rate. The experience is entirely different in terms of the flow of the conversations we're having, and how we’re able to help the customer. The system follows the flow of the telephone call rather than the other way around.” Mark Richards, Account Manager, CarFinance 247

Because the system is a lot more initiative, the time to onboard new agents is a fifth of what it once was.

“One of the best things that we did was making Zing an extension of our internal development team. When we did, things just took off. Nicole Taylor, Head of Product, CarFinance 247

Nicole continued, “feedback on how agents are finding it, has been fantastic. The system is really quite intuitive.

“One of the biggest benefits of Flex and working with Zing is how quickly we can iterate. We get feedback and can implement changes that improve the agent experience in a matter of days.

"It never feels like there’s any friction at the handover point. They’re quick with questions, and come up with solutions. They just get on with it, and we get the best out of Flex."

"What Zing has helped us achieve with Twilio Flex has been transformative. The improvement to our quotes process cannot be overstated, and I’m incredibly proud of all involved." Daniel Graham, CTO, CarFinance 247

Zing is now helping CarFinance 24/7 roll-out Flex to assist in money collections, back office systems and the final sales process, completely replacing the old system.