Gulf Bank’s happy returns: investing in agent and customer satisfaction
The Challenge
Gulf Bank is one of the leading conventional banks in Kuwait with more than $20 billion in assets and a wide range of services provided to customers online and at its more than 50 bank branches and 300 ATMs.
We are now able to extract reports with just a few clicks – no coding or scripts required. Reports can now be tailored and designed the way we want them to be, and doing so is extremely easy thanks to the Sprinklr team, who are always ready to support and train us.”
Head of Customer Contact Center, Gulf Bank of Kuwait
Established in 1960, the bank has consistently been there for its customers, adapting to evolving digital landscapes. In 2009, it ventured onto X (formerly Twitter), expanded its presence to Instagram in 2012, and initiated a more extensive digital transformation in 2018 when it began engaging with customers through WhatsApp. Today, WhatsApp accounts for nearly 60% of customer service cases.
As part of this transformation journey, the bank aimed to address a customer service challenge that emerged as it extended its reach across various digital channels. Engaging with customers on multiple platforms made it difficult to apply a service level agreement, track responses, and establish clear performance benchmarks. To solve this, the bank sought a technological solution that would guarantee consistently exceptional customer experiences by being accessible to customers and meeting their inquiries within a 10-minute Service Level Agreement (SLA) target.
The Solution
Gulf Bank selected Sprinklr’s unified customer experience management (Unified-CXM) platform and is leveraging Sprinklr Service to empower its customer service agents to reply to all inquiries from a single source.
“This was an incredible leap, as prior to using Sprinklr, our agents had to switch from one platform to another to ensure that all inquiries were attended to,” explains Mursi Mahmud, head of Gulf Bank’s customer contact center.
Streamlined customer service with automated case creation and assignment
Gulf Bank has transformed its customer service by automating the case creation and assignment process, resulting in quick and personalized support for its customers. Sprinklr's Case Maker simplifies case creation through customizable rules, reducing the administrative workload on agents and enabling them to focus on customer interactions. Gone are the days when cases were randomly assigned to agents, regardless of their expertise or the communication channel. With Sprinklr's Unified Routing, cases are now intelligently allocated to agents based on their specific skills and preferred channel, ensuring that each customer inquiry is directed to the most qualified agent. Skill-based routing not only facilitates efficient issue resolution but also contributes to customer satisfaction.
Optimized customer interactions with the Stickiness Timeout feature
Gulf Bank is also leveraging Sprinklr’s Stickiness Timeout feature as a means of enhancing customer service continuity and efficiency. Essentially, the bank defines a time period during which any follow-up on a case is handled by the same agent who last worked on the case. When a customer reaches out during this “stickiness” period, the case is automatically assigned to that agent, so long as they are available. This ensures a seamless and consistent experience for the customer. For Gulf Bank today, up to 70% of follow-up inquiries are being handled by the same agents, demonstrating the value of the Stickiness Timeout feature in maintaining agent continuity and improving customer service quality.
Enhanced support and brand continuity with canned responses
Gulf Bank also empowers its customer service agents with pre-written, standardized responses that help to ensure consistency in brand messaging and service quality. Sprinklr’s Canned Responses feature, powered by AI, empowers Gulf Bank agents to deliver uniform support to customers while achieving their 10-minute Service Level Agreement (SLA) target for initial responses. Presently, approximately 13-16 percent of agent responses are generated through this automated feature.
The Outcome
Since Sprinklr implementation, the Service has delivered a substantial positive impact to both Gulf Bank's customer service agents and its customers.
Agent satisfaction has seen a notable increase, primarily due to the elimination of platform switching and the establishment of case continuity. In cases where agents are initially assigned, subsequent follow-up inquiries are automatically redirected to them. Furthermore, agents now enjoy the added convenience of canned responses, ensuring that their interactions with customers remain precise and aligned with the bank's brand identity.
The bank has reduced its average first response time from 58 minutes and five seconds in 2020 to five minutes and 51 seconds in 2023. This improvement has allowed the bank to establish an average response Service Level Agreement (SLA) of 10 minutes, making it the fastest and most advanced bank in Kuwait when it comes to customer response speed. At the same time, agents are responding to more cases than ever: the number of cases responded to increase by 17 percent from 2022 to 2023. For Mahmud, automated and customizable reports — together with excellent support from the Sprinklr team — are icing on the cake.
“Amongst all the incredible features that Sprinklr offers, we are now able to extract reports with just a few clicks – no coding or scripts required,” he says. “Reports can now be tailored and designed the way we want them to be, and doing so is extremely easy thanks to the Sprinklr team, who are always ready to support and train us.”