Nubank is pioneering the new “digital-first” era of banking with Twilio

Challenge

Nubank needed to promote analytical solutions, customization opportunities, and channel diversification, as well as greater autonomy, stability, and security.

Solution

Twilio Flex and SendGrid provided Nubank with a fully customizable and scalable solution to conveniently serve customers, regardless of their preferred channels.

Founded in May 2013, Nubank has already achieved excellent results for a fintech company that has been in the market for less than 10 years. Less than a year after its launch, the fintech company presented its first product, the famous purple credit card with the Mastercard logo. Four years after its launch, Nubank achieved unicorn startup status and is now one of the world’s largest digital financial services platforms, serving approximately 54 million customers in Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia.

As a company that identifies as a technology company, Nubank uses data and design to create an excellent customer experience, offering financial services that not only meet user needs but also truly stand out in the industry.

Focusing on a user experience that differs from many existing fintech companies on the market, Nubank’s customer base is not limited to young people who were tired of the bureaucracy of traditional banks. In fact, older people are also part of this segment. In 2020, the fintech company registered a growing number of people over 60. Between April and June 2021, the volume of new customers in this segment was 50% higher than in the same period in 2019.

Given these figures and in order to seamlessly serve its diverse customer base, Nubank aims to build long-term relationships with its users, based primarily on trust, with the concept of “digital first” as its foundation.

“Customers no longer accept how they are treated by traditional banks—and this tendency is likely to grow stronger over time,” explains Cristina Junqueira, co-founder of Nubank. “It is worth pointing out that Nubank’s customer service is based on four pillars: anticipation, resolution, care, and training. In addition to offering practical products and incredible service, we maintain an entirely transparent relationship with our customers.”

Innovation is in our DNA

The pandemic further accelerated the digitalization that Nubank was already carrying out. In the first quarter of 2020, the bank registered an average of 42,000 new users per day, in addition to offering special refinancing conditions with lower interest rates and extended payment terms for customers.

The goal of the action was to support them at a time of economic instability. However, not only customers received help at that time; employees also had full support and were one of the first banking teams to adopt the home office model.

Having been founded during Brazil’s biggest crisis, it was always part of Nubank’s DNA to adapt to change. “My motivation is to keep the promise we made to our millions of customers, offering a transparent, easy-to-understand, and hassle-free banking experience that allows them to be the best they can be financially and revolutionize the financial sector in Latin America. This is a region of great inequality, where around 30%, 55%, and 65% of the populations of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, respectively, currently do not have a bank account (2017 data, according to the World Bank). One of the main driving forces behind my career and Nubank as a whole is being able to contribute significantly to financial inclusion and digitalization throughout Latin America,” emphasizes Junqueira.

The future of communications with Twilio

Faced with this new reality, Twilio became a partner in the bank’s customer engagement strategy. Among the main benefits were greater autonomy and more confident scaling. “We achieve more stability and security in more robust service and contingency plans. The platform is highly customizable and allows us to develop various functionalities over time.” says Cristina.

Currently, Twilio Flex is used to serve customers through voice channels, emergency calls (ombudsman), sending alerts via SMS, and information and campaigns through Sendgrid.

“We chose Twilio over other platforms because it gave us a great opportunity for improvement compared to the older platform we were using. A few of the things that caught our attention were the analytical solutions within Flex, the opportunity for customization, and the diversification of channels that Twilio offers (email, SMS, WhatsApp, and VoIP—telephone),” points out Nubank’s product and channel manager, Yuri Cruz.

Another benefit of using Twilio Flex highlighted by the fintech company was the support service that helped build the ideal solution for the company. “The support helped us discover turnkey solutions and resolve technical integration issues quickly and effectively,” adds Cruz.

Building the solution for Roxinho

In terms of customer experience and agent effectiveness, even after only a short time in use, Nubank is already seeing positive results.

On the end-customer side, the fintech company noticed better call quality, as well as greater flexibility and speed to improve the overall phone experience by quickly connecting and disconnecting contingency IVRs and the like. “Analytical and investigative tools helped us define more effective action plans with our agents to solve connection problems,” says Yuri.

As for the thousands of internal agents, the supervisors, who were already trained in analytical tools and resources, Twilio Flex provides them with more details on the data collected. Being able to download call recordings from the tool itself without having to make requests to agents elsewhere is one example of improved productivity. “In terms of usability, it’s very intuitive. How you can build dashboards is really good,” adds Yuri.