NIC ASIA Bank supports 1.8 million customers with Freshworks

Born from the merger of two of the largest private commercial banks in 2013, NIC ASIA Bank is one of the most successful banks in Nepal. It currently has more than 300 branches across the country that cater to both B2B and B2C clientele. 

The challenge

Recognizing the importance of great service in banking, where customers are often anxious about their money and nervous about trusting financial institutions, NIC ASIA Bank decided to set an industry standard in its region. The bank does business in line with five core values: meritocracy, transparency, professionalism, team spirit, and service excellence. It believes in being the pioneer in their industry for customer experience journeys, and it was this ambition that led them to Freshworks. 

Today, the bank has more than 3,000 staff and processes close to 1.8 million customers in Nepal. We spoke to Suman Thapa, the bank's manager of experience enrichment, to get an idea of how Freshworks has helped the company grow over time. 

The solution

NIC ASIA used to rely heavily on manual, time-consuming processes. Shifting through multiple interfaces and applications to complete a single task was getting to be a big problem, and Mr Thapa turned to Freshworks for a solution. Freshdesk was implemented for NIC’s support organization within a month, enabling an integrated, single-window platform to support all customer queries and grievances. With the help of Freshdesk’s reporting, it was able to track metrics such as Customer Satisfaction Index, Net Promoter Score, Customer Reporting Index, Employee Satisfaction Index, etc.

Initially, most of the bank’s customers gravitated toward email as a mode of communication, but once the bank introduced Freshchat on its website, it saw a significant shift in traffic. Now, it has agents dedicated to handling Freshchat queries, which number more than 400 conversations a day.

Impact

By hosting its platform on AWS, Freshworks can focus its resources on developing an easy-to-use and intuitive product while leveraging proven, reliable cloud infrastructure. With Freshworks products on AWS, agents can instantly access customer data from anywhere, which has helped NIC ASIA achieve ROI and journey towards experience transformation. This collaboration has been a boon for several small and medium enterprises, helping them achieve business continuity during the pandemic.

As the bank grows, NIC ASIA is looking at improving internal collaboration with the implementation of Freshconnect. Regulatory compliance and cybersecurity make it difficult to implement cloud service products across all aspects of the business. Where it is possible, NIC ASIA Bank is partnering closely with Freshworks to create customers for life.