Pioneering digital-only banking in the Philippines

Democratising financial services for the unbanked

As a financial services provider, Tonik is in the business of people. Founded in 2018 by Greg Krasnov, the organisation aimed to serve unbanked Filipinos. With world-leading internet and social media use, the Philippines represents a $140 billion market in retail deposits and a $100 billion market in unsecured retail lending. This makes the Southeast Asian nation a great fit for alternative banking solutions. Recognising this opportunity, Tonik became the country’s first “neobank” to secure a digital bank license from the nation’s central bank.

Tonik uses its digital-only solutions to give more people easy access to financial products — without the hassle of lengthy paperwork.

“We set out to introduce the public to the next generation of financial platforms,” said Arivuvel Ramu, Chief Technology Officer at Tonik Digital Bank.

A new approach in the new normal

Just as its product rollout strategy was finalised, the COVID-19 pandemic struck — posing unforeseen challenges for Tonik. A hybrid workforce required new processes, virtual onboarding and training. And a virtual audience meant Tonik needed to rethink its product suite as face-to-face interactions came to a halt because of pandemic restrictions.

But for a company built with a digital-first mindset, this was a chance to grow its workforce and optimise customer experiences without compromising quality.

“My dream was for a fully automated contact centre,” said Ramu. “I wasn’t looking to set up a traditional physical office full of 3,000 to 5,000 agents to sit behind phones and sell to our customers.”

Eleven months after its commercial launch, Tonik achieved its goal. Its unique customer base stood at 120,000 and the number of contact centre agents increased from 10 to 200 — all made possible through its partnership with Genesys.

“When I looked at their value proposition, Genesys was a perfect fit,” said Ramu. “I wanted to look at different options to build a modern customer due diligence, underwriting and collections team. I was looking for a platform that would provide advanced technologies and the relevant tools to our agents to work from anywhere while still handling customer calls in the most efficient way possible.”

Keeping agents motivated

When the pandemic forced businesses to shift to a hybrid work model, Tonik couldn’t onboard and train its staff in the office. But with tools like Genesys Workforce Engagement Management, the bank provided employees with a single platform and intuitive performance dashboards for training, educational resources and motivation. Staff members didn’t feel isolated and, once trained, could continue to benefit from an omnichannel experience when connecting with customers — all without stepping into the office.

Adopting predictive and progressive dialers also allowed Tonik to automate all outbound calls, saving both time and money.

“If you look at our social strategy integrations, we are now also using Nova.ChatsConnector, which helps us to integrate our Facebook and Viber feed into the centralised omnichannel agent experience, where agents can look at the field and respond through a single window system using Genesys Cloud,” said Ramu.

Reaching and serving customers effectively

While prioritising the well-being of its workforce, Tonik also needed to ensure it didn’t compromise customer service. Genesys enabled call recording and quality assurance via in-app chat, Facebook Messenger, Viber and across all outbound calls.

Genesys Cloud not only freed up employees, it also helped reduce customer wait times. Conversational voicebots managed and unified bots across phone, web chat, mobile messaging and smart speakers. And chatbots with built-in artificial intelligence (AI) handled low-level tasks and seamlessly transferred interactions to live agents, when needed. These services directly affected customer service outcomes.

“I am impressed by the fact that our average customer waiting time has been reduced from five to two minutes, all thanks to Genesys,” said Ramu.

Looking to the future

With the Genesys implementation, Tonik experienced zero downtime and disruption during the entire project. Together, the companies built all customer journeys and workflows within five months.

“In my many years of experience, I have never seen a contact centre campaign launched in under six months,” said Ramu.

With this success, Tonik is now ready for the future.

“Our long-term roadmap is focused on two particular areas,” said Ramu. “First, we are laser-focused on scaling our loans portfolio with an all-digital touchpoint process via our mobile app. Second, we would like to introduce customer interaction through artificial intelligence and machine learning with predictive problem solving.”

Tonik is ready to provide customers with the next generation of financial services as Genesys helps to differentiate it through a personalised, contextual experience.