Global Payments gains service efficiency and customer satisfaction with a cloud-based CX platform

A complex legacy

Reliably consistent, streamlined customer service can be challenging for any organization that, like Global Payments, provides a broad range of services across geographies. Reducing the complexity of any underlying technology is essential.

Global Payments has a truly global footprint, providing a variety of financial services to institutions and merchants in over 100 countries worldwide. The company has also grown considerably through mergers and acquisitions, which created an extremely complex and heterogeneous contact center operation that includes 50 sites worldwide.

“We were really looking for a way to bring our contact centers onto a single platform that could push us forward to our future,” said Mackenzi Eisman, Business Solution Manager at Global Payments.

After Global Payments decided to move on from incumbent Avaya, its contact center leadership conducted extensive proof-of-concept work with four potential new providers, including Genesys. Internal IT specialists met with business leaders to discuss opportunities and challenges relating not just to contact center technology but also to the entire customer journey evolution. These needs were then ranked according to enterprise priorities on a scorecard.

Vetting for must-haves

The detailed search and review emphasized the need for a platform that would be easy to use for all employees, regardless of experience with past systems. “If agents have to read a 10-page manual to be able to use a tool or a function, it’s probably not going to get used, so then we would be paying for something that’s not relevant to our business,” said Eisman.

Also essential was finding a solution that would not need extensive minding. Global Payments has talented developers, but they need to focus on customer-facing payment processing solutions, not maintaining contact center systems. “We are not a BPO; we are not in the business of hosting and supporting contact centers,” added Beth Granberry, Director of Telecommunications and Contact Center Services at Global Payments. “Our team needed the contact center to work, and that was a really big benefit of Genesys: knowing that everything is there, we just need to turn it on.”

With evaluation tools in hand, small teams of Global Payments specialists spent weeks vetting each solution. The experts pored over the systems, assessing real-world performance against third-party research and vendor claims, and assigning scores based on the priorities provided by internal stakeholders.

Comprehensive consideration pays off

The detailed, lengthy search for the optimal customer experience (CX) platform was more than worth the effort. “Our process was time-consuming, but if we hadn’t put the time in, we may not have picked the best vendor,” said Eisman. “It is a lot of work, but the results you get are unmatched, in my opinion.”

Granberry concurred: “We’re quite proud of the research we did. We wanted something with the breadth and security structure to support a Global 500 company. We didn’t want to buy a roadmap; we wanted to buy functionality that’s actually in place today.”

Ultimately, the search process found that no other provider could deliver the same degree of code customization, systems integration and out-of-the-box functionality that the Genesys Cloud CX solution provides. Amazon Connect was eliminated in the final round, making Genesys the clear winner.

“When it came down to what’s already built, Genesys scored higher,” said Granberry. “Genesys Cloud had everything we needed, either already in the system, or in an AppFoundry partner, or in an out-of-the-box API — bringing everything together quickly and in an easy, standardized process.”

The right team, the right rewards

To address the challenges of moving a worldwide enterprise away from a complex legacy software environment, Global Payments turned to professionals at Genesys partner TTEC for help. “TTEC understood Genesys, they were ready to work with a large enterprise company and they listened to us,” said Granberry.

Bringing sites online in Genesys Cloud has been largely uneventful. The largest deployment to date at the company’s Cleveland operation included the first rollout with Salesforce integration. The Global Payments implementation team was braced for the friction and frantic messages that often accompany enterprise rollouts. What they got was a fast but otherwise unremarkable changeover. “It went so smoothly that by noon the first day of implementation, I was driving home,” said Eisman.

Since implementation, agents who have moved to Genesys Cloud have higher efficiency and file fewer support tickets. The consistent voice experience, in or out of the office, has made it easier for Global Payments representatives to field calls. “The agents love that no matter where they’re working it’s the same experience, and we’re seeing decreases in issues and incident tickets, because Genesys Voice Services just works,” said Eisman.

Customer experience is also improving. Call abandon rates are down, and customers’ uptake of virtual assistants is on the rise. Global Payments has also started working with Genesys Cloud AI tools to speed employee directory lookups and improve agent assistance tools. The company is launching Agent Copilot, looking forward to potential productivity gains as a result.

Because Global Payments has such a diverse business footprint, it took seven independent implementations to bring the first 1,500 agents onto Genesys Cloud. Over the coming year the company will bring the majority of worldwide agents online as the company’s three largest contact centers make the switch. Working together with the Genesys team will be a key component of the greater migration.

“Genesys can open up so many communication channels or bring in resources that help our business leaders understand where a product roadmap is going,” said Granberry. “So, having Genesys as a partner isn’t just day-to-day support, it’s very future-looking, providing our business a level of comfort.”