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On-prem to cloud: How Moneypenny opened the door to truly omnichannel engagement with Twilio Flex

Moneypenny provides 24/7 outsourced communication services to more than 13,000 businesses, from start-ups to multinational corporations, delivered by a team of 700+ dedicated receptionists based in the UK and U.S.

The Results
4
months to build their Flex solution
3
developers to build their Flex solution
13,000
+ clients worldwide

The nearly 20-year-old organization is one of the fastest growing of its kind, handling 15 million calls and chats annually on behalf of its clients. Their success comes from a single-minded drive to, as they describe it, “blow the socks off” every single one of their clients’ customers, while utilizing gold-standard technology and innovating at every turn.

As the company has expanded, the varied systems and vendors used, along with a lack of standardised APIs, prohibited it from developing as quickly as it would have liked.

"We had a variety of vendors but it was difficult to get them all working simultaneously,” explained Oliver Kelly, Moneypenny’s head of technical architecture.

The company knew there had to be a better way—and it looked to Twilio to help bring its vision to life.

Identifying an opportunity in Flex

Moneypenny first began using Twilio in 2017, experimenting with Twilio Studio and various Twilio APIs to rapidly create a point-of-contact interactive voice response (IVR) complete with voice recognition. The more it built with Twilio, the more it realized Twilio might be just the solution it was looking for to overhaul and replace their on-site phone system at the time.

When Twilio Flex hit the scene in 2018, Moneypenny knew it was the right fit. The promise of end-to-end communications management, with increased visibility and endless options for customisation, drove the company to sign on as a beta user.

“Flex ensures we can unify all channels we look after now and in the future; it allows everything to be seamless,” said Sarah Baker, Moneypenny’s senior product manager.

Flex ensures we can unify all channels we look after now and in the future; it allows everything to be seamless.

Sarah Baker, Moneypenny’s senior product manager

A whole new world of omnichannel capabilities

Moneypenny and Twilio partnered to ensure the transition from a legacy, on-premise solution to a cloud-based one with Flex, was seamless. This partnership also enabled the company to integrate its homegrown customer relationship management system, called RITA, into their new centralized platform.

“Twilio developers have been engaged with us through on-site hackathons to get this off the ground, followed by a one-week engagement which helped us get Flex up and running,” Kelly explained. “Since then we have engaged multiple times and have been involved in superclasses. They have been really hands-on, which has been great for us.”

Now, a whole new world of omnichannel capabilities are available to the company. It is now working on the ability to offer businesses of all sizes the capacity to engage with customers on any channel they can be found—whether that’s SMS, phone calls, live chat, Facebook Messenger, and more.

Moneypenny is using its Flex-powered solution to offer better services to clients. With Twilio, the company is beginning to put its vast sector-specific knowledge, individual client data, and machine learning insights to work to better inform its internal and external facing platforms. Its team can optimize customer routing to ensure quality across all channels, keeping good on its promise to “blow the socks off” clients’ customers.

“Excellent customer service is paramount to our business. When people are speaking to Moneypenny, our aim is to ensure we represent our clients in the very best way and are a seamless part of their team,” Baker said. “We serve data to our receptionists to help enhance that service—ensuring callers remain blissfully unaware they have come through to an outsourced provider.”

Expansion from a strong foundation

Now that the company is committed to its Flex solution, the sky’s the limit in terms of growth and possibilities. It’s exploring even more ways to provide better omnichannel engagement to clients and their customers across more markets and geographic locations.

This includes integrating machine learning into more of its products, expanding natural language capabilities to better serve customers, incorporating sentiment analysis and smart chatbots for automated, self-serve options.

“Working with Twilio allows us to continue to offer exceptional customer service, delivered by amazing people and supported by incredible technology as we grow,” Baker said.

Working with Twilio allows us to continue to offer exceptional customer service, delivered by amazing people and supported by incredible technology as we grow.

Sarah Baker, Moneypenny’s senior product manager