Customers give big tick to RACQ transformation which empowers firstline employee

Customers are often the best litmus test when it comes to identifying engaged, committed workers.

So RACQ’s employees should be particularly proud of their performance as reflected in the 2019 KPMG Customer Experience Excellence report which ranked RACQ Insurance second only to Singapore Airlines.

By empowering firstline workers with data and digital tools that allow them to collaborate, communicate and deliver exceptional customer service, RACQ is continuously polishing its performance.

RACQ is Queensland’s largest club with 1.7 million members who access a range of services including roadside assistance, insurance, banking, travel and an array of member discounts.

Core to its firstline workers is the replacement of a 22-year-old on-premises legacy system for member and product management. That legacy platform – called MARS – is being replaced by Dynamics365, in a transformation program dubbed Jupiter.

The digital transformation of RACQ goes much deeper however; it’s also deployed Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Azure to support the key work processes across the organisation and also provide the digital foundations for the enterprise’s renewal.

Established as a traditional motoring club, RACQ has evolved and diversified to now offer broader assistance, insurance, travel and banking services. Today, besides its 1.7 million members it has assets of around $A4.5 billion.

The move into insurance and banking (the latter accelerated by its $3.9 billion merger with QT Mutual Bank) has also raised the compliance and regulatory bar for RACQ which comes under the watch of APRA, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority.

Compliance is critical, but as Matthew Redhead, General Manager, Technology Strategy, Architecture and Risk, notes; “We keep our absolute focus on our members. That’s the reason that we exist. We do everything for our members.”

That is reflected he says in the high membership satisfaction rates, high net promoter and trust scores, and most recently its ranking in the KPMG analysis.

According to Redhead; “The success of RACQ is totally dependent on our technology capabilities. So an RACQ in the future which is thriving, still has that reputation, is still of real value, will exist if we have really delivered on the technology challenge.”

That technology challenge stretches throughout the organisation from member apps to help with roadside assistance, to the back office digital platforms that help RACQ firstline workers support customers.

Redhead adds that robotic process automation leveraging UiPath bots reduces the mundane task load for workers, freeing them up for higher value work.

At present about 20 business processes are automated by bots such as re-keying activities, correspondence administration and, helping with financial processing that is routine and repetitive.

Cloud transformation

Achieving that sort of streamlining effect for the firstline workers requires robust digital foundations including embracing a move to the cloud.

Project Jupiter has been running for a year, with the intent to transform both the first line worker and customer experience across the group with Dynamics 365.

Mark Brumler is the Jupiter Program Manager and explains that a fresh approach was needed because the legacy systems – some of which were over two decades old – were getting harder to manage and struggled to keep pace with RACQ’s business changes.

A year into the transformation Brumler says; “The Jupiter program is really about a whole new platform around how we engage with members, which is right at the front door, and that’s our CRM,” which is centred on Dynamics 365.

Around 1500 RACQ personnel use Dynamics 365 each day, with a couple of hundred more to come when RACQ Banking is transitioned across to the platform.

Brumler explains that the intent is to create a seamless firstline worker experience, so that whether an employee is in a contact centre or a retail outlet they will be able to access the system, call up all the information they need about the customer they are engaged with and access all the information needed to provide informed customer services and support from a single platform.

“Dynamics effectively is the single source of truth for our member experience. Identify them, understand what relationship we have with the member and then, depending on where the conversation goes, fulfil that interaction

“If a member logs in digitally, then it’s looking up their details within the Dynamics platform as well. It’s a source of truth for our members and membership,” he adds.

Besides the new features and flexibility Dynamics 365 delivers it has also reduced the technology impost on RACQ. Instead of IT professionals having to administer and maintain the system, they are free to work with the business on how the solution can be used to the greatest advantage according to Brumler.

Security boost

While adopting Microsoft’s three clouds has delivered a single source of truth to enhance the customer experience, and empowered firstline workers with more streamlined processes – the move to the cloud has also enhanced the security profile of RACQ.

The CASB (cloud access security broker) feature of RACQ’s Microsoft 365 E5 licence is providing additional systems visibility to the organisation. David Page, Head of End User Experience, notes that as an APRA regulated entity RACQ places a high priority on both the quality of its information and its security.

As a long-term Office 365 user RACQ has progressively moved workloads across, it has leveraged Yammer and SharePoint, as well as multi factor authentication to enhance security.

Information protection is a key priority for the business and RACQ conducts penetration testing, as well as complying with APRA regulations regarding information protection and its expectations related to the use of cloud.

According to Brumler; “Having this platform is proving to be very reliable in that sense and it’s set up to support our compliance requirements. I think the configuration of testing that Microsoft does independently of us is setting the bar quite high already, which is then reducing the amount of additional amount of work that we have to do.”

RACQ has also replaced a previous mobile device management system with InTune which delivers enhanced value and oversees a fleet of more than 1,000 BYOD and corporate Apple and Android devices. InTune will also be able to manage public kiosk devices deployed by RACQ for specific events.

State of the art mobile security is important as the RACQ workplace is becoming increasingly flexible. A number of activity-based workstations are located throughout the campuses, offering staff the choice of either a Surface Pro or Surface laptop.

According to Page; “These are enabling flexibility in the workplace with hot desking, work from home, and collaboration hubs.   RACQ has recently acquired some Surface Hub 2 devices and staff are excited about the collaboration opportunities these devices will provide.”

RACQ’s enhanced security posture is also helping to ensure mobile workers have appropriate access to the systems they need to do their jobs. While conditional access controls were initially developed to help protect the organisation and employees from phishing attempts, these also now provide the granular access control for Dynamics 365 and other RACQ systems.

RACQ has further heightened its security and performance by establishing an ExpressRoute connection to the Azure cloud.

Teams engaged

Latterly RACQ has been an enthusiastic adopter of Teams. Yammer has been widely embraced to promote connections across the business and as a support for the change program, but Teams is providing even richer communications and collaboration opportunities.

While both Teams and Yammer have a distinct role in RACQ “Chat has just gone gangbusters,” says Brumler.

Yammer groups typically have organisation-wide visibility and are used for both corporate and social groups.   Teams is used heavily with smaller collaboration circles – chats are regularly stood up to collaborate within disparate teams. This sort of collaboration would previously have occurred via email discussions.

While around 60-70 per cent of RACQ employees use Yammer – Teams is now being used by about 80 per cent of the workforce, and prized for what Redhead describes as its “organic” feel.

That’s been particularly apparent in the way it was harnessed to support the rollout of Dynamics 365 and communicate what was coming, when.

Brumler explains; “The GoLive for Dynamics is seen to be one of the more successful that we’ve done in recent times. And that’s taking into account it’s 1500 people, which is one of the largest people impact projects we’ve had.

“It’s been very successful, and I think that’s down to the platform itself being quite easy to use and to get to understand, partly from the overall change approach in terms of high engagement, high visibility to what was coming, and familiarisation with the new platform and ways of working as well.”

Given the sheer amount of transformation and change being undertaken across RACQ, Teams has provided an important conduit to share information and insights with employees, as well as provide them a valued communications platform. Page adds that the intuitive nature of the platform also means people want to communicate more, want to collaborate more – which helps reduce the friction that can accompany change programs.