For GoHenry, Great Customer Service Starts in the Cloud
It’s no secret that offering a great customer experience is more important than ever. In fact, 93% of companies view their customer experience as a differentiator. With so many businesses focused on providing exceptional experiences, it can be hard to keep up with expectations, let alone stand out in the crowd.
This was just one of the challenges that GoHenry faced in 2012, when the kid-centric FinTech was founded by Louise Hill and two others after a conversation with some parents at a youth football match. It’s unlikely that, while navigating London traffic on the morning of the match, they realised they were also starting a journey that would take them around the world, connect them with millions of parents and kids, and smash equity crowdfunding records by generating over £4 million on Crowdcube in 2016 – before doing it again and raising another £6 million in 2018.
But despite its unusual birthplace, GoHenry was born from the same goal as many successful businesses: to tackle a problem no one else was addressing.
Making money real: How GoHenry is connecting with millions of kids
GoHenry offers a pre-paid card for children between the ages of 6 and 18. But more than that, it offers a way for kids to responsibly manage their finances, and for parents to have oversight and control over their children’s online behaviour. “You have kids now who are able to go online and potentially access services that they shouldn't be accessing,”, says Ruth Vero, Head of Operations at GoHenry. “GoHenry has a chip in the card, which means that if a product or a service is for an adult, they won't be able to access it.”
Just as importantly, GoHenry helps prevent expensive accidental purchases of things like apps and games, while teaching kids how to be good with money. Children can earn funds by completing tasks or through a regular weekly allowance, while honing healthy habits for earning, saving, spending and giving. Crucially, it’s all under the purview of the parents.
The utility of an educational tool and financial instrument for kids is evident. What’s surprising is that it didn’t already exist. In fact, when GoHenry entered the space, it created the space – and had to prepare to scale up quickly in the face of massive growth.
Searching for a single view of the customer
When GoHenry started, it used customer service technology that was in line with its modest beginnings on the football pitch, but soon realised it had to revisit its tech stack as its customer base exploded. “We had all these different systems that were not working well together,” Vero says. “Louise (Hill) and I were searching for something that was going to give us what we'd always wanted, which was to have one view of the customer.”
In 2018, GoHenry turned to Salesforce. In order to improve customer service skills and get the 360 view of the customer that it wanted, GoHenry introduced Service Cloud and Marketing Cloud. “Every connection we have with the customer is within that one system,” says Vero. “We know whether they come to us via live chat or email or social media. Prior to having Salesforce, we didn't have one view of the customer at all. If they had emailed us, we wouldn't know they had called us at the same time. It was just utterly impossible.”
Getting a single view of the customer not only helps GoHenry provide more efficient customer service; it helps it provide more personalised customer service, too. Beau McDonald, Member Services Agent for GoHenry, says: “Every customer is unique. Service Cloud definitely enables us to build a positive rapport with our customers, because we have everything in a single platform.”
And when you’re dealing with people’s finances, being empathetic and able to respond rapidly are crucial customer service skills. McDonald says, “I had this customer, bless her, and she was crying to me on the phone for quite a while so I did feel quite bad for her. You’re not normally on a call for an hour, but I helped her get logged in and top up some money onto her account, because her child was stranded.”
GoHenry optimises omnichannel customer service with Salesforce
Providing exceptional customer service is great; providing it across channels is even better. By offering omnichannel support, GoHenry is helping customers connect in the ways that they’re most comfortable with. As Ruth Vero puts it, “When customers contact us, we're going to have an agent there ready to take that straight away and deal with it. The customer won’t feel any difference between how they're dealt with. Whether by email or on the phone, they'll get the same experience.”
GoHenry is working to optimise its internal processes, too. “Service Cloud allows us to communicate with different departments within our own company. So, if I needed to escalate a case, I can transfer cases to a different department in a different office. It saves us all the emails and messages and contacting the different departments; I can just put a case straight into their queue,” McDonald explains.
A future built on better relationships – and better customer service skills
GoHenry has come a long way in a short period of time, and its ability to scale at speed has been remarkable. Not only is it building lasting relationships with its customers; their customer base is growing. GoHenry now has:
Over 2 million customers globally.
More than 200 employees worldwide.
Launched and growing in the US.
However, the story is just getting started for GoHenry and its customers. “There’s always something changing,” Beau McDonald says. “There’s always something new that we need to learn. A new technique that we can use to make our customer service more efficient. GoHenry’s always growing.”
Ruth Vero agrees, saying, “Go Henry is about to scale even further than we have in the last 10 years. We have huge plans. The great thing about working with Salesforce is that we know they can take us there. They’re a trusted partner on this journey”.
For GoHenry’s young users, the road towards healthy financial habits may have started at a school football match, but it’s taking them all the way to the Cloud.
To see how you can get a single view of the customer and improve your customer service, check out Service Cloud. And to see what’s driving customer service in the current climate, catch up on customer service trends.
State of Service Report, Fifth Edition
See what’s driving customer service in the current climate, catch up on customer service trends.
