Raiffeisen Romania streamlines Service Operations

Leading digital transformation 
Raiffeisen Bank Romania, headquartered in Bucharest, is a member of Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI), an Austrian banking group headquartered in Vienna and with operations across Central and Eastern Europe. Raiffeisen Bank Romania, which was awarded both “Best Private Bank” and “Best Bank” in Romania by PWM/The Banker in 2021, serves 2.28 million private and corporate customers across approximately 300 branches.

Modern banking requires a digital-first enterprise. Customers are switching to digital channels for almost any banking task, from credit card applications to bank transfers to mortgage inquiries. For these demands banks must have robust, seamless digital workflows. 

“Digital transformation is central to our plans, as it affects all parts of our business,” says Cristi Stoica, ServiceNow Administrator, Raiffeisen Bank Romania.

As a leading domestic bank, Raiffeisen Bank Romania wants to lead the digital transformation of the sector. It wants to refine its digital channels and launch new, digital-first services. 

The bank’s transformation plans must encompass customer-facing and back-office. To support the best customer applications, Raiffeisen Bank Romania recognizes it must establish a slick, seamless operational structure. It must also attract the next generation of talent to drive this change.

“It is essential we streamline and automate the way service is delivered to our employees and our customers,” says Cristi. “Before ServiceNow, we had a decentralized support system, heavily reliant on email and Excel. It was not fit for purpose. Employees were having to use email to report a problem, often at a time when their email wasn’t working. Plus, it was impossible to get a clear picture of what was going on for our employees and our customers.” 

Establishing a coherent service structure 
ServiceNow is key to the transformation of Raiffeisen Bank Romania’s business workflows. The group’s Romanian business has deployed both ServiceNow IT Service Management and IT Operations Management as it sought to overhaul the way IT was managed, maintained, and ultimately, the way it delivers an exceptional experience to its users. 

Raiffeisen Bank Romania created a dedicated team to manage the deployment, delivered in less than six months. Cristi says the team had little experience of ServiceNow and were hungry to learn as much as possible: “We knew we needed to start with Discovery, to give us a clear picture of the scale of the task.” The bank’s goal was to find transparency around the IT services provided and the IT infrastructure needed to support the services it provides to businesses and stakeholders. 

Building confidence in digital progress 
The signs are positive. The Romanian business reports a huge boost in user satisfaction with a consistent Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 60 and above since implementing ServiceNow. “We now measure feedback from users after every ticket has closed,” says Cristi. “Our NPS should always stay above 60.” 

The key is that users can see progress being made, says Julian Babulea, Employee Support Services, Raiffeisen Bank Romania. “We’re now able to track the progress of a request. There is the right balance of automation, self-service, and human interaction. The use of Knowledge Base is ideal for those who are happy to find their own answers.” 

There is now a clearer view of activity across the IT function overall, a more consistent process around service delivery, and clarity and visibility to the overall IT environment. The uncertainty caused by decentralization has been replaced with a unified platform and single system of truth. 

“You drive digital transformation with the buy-in of employees,” says Cristi. “We now have a team that is confident in our digital capabilities. Process efficiency and responsive support to both employees and customers are key to building confidence.” 

Creating an appetite for continuous improvement 
For Raiffeisen Bank Romania, the availability of metrics has been transformational. For the first time, the business has clear evidence of progress and the means to measure its IT processes. 

“We can measure response times and resolution times,” says Catalin Samfira, ServiceNow Administrator, Raiffeisen Bank Romania. “The fact we can measure our work, and customer satisfaction, generates new levels of improvement.”

For Cristi, the success of the engagement is the fact it has opened up new levels of service expectation across the business. The HR and accounting teams in Romania have inquired as to when they can adopt ServiceNow modules; Cristi says there is an appetite to keep finding new opportunities to automate and add to the Knowledge Base. 

“For instance, we’re looking at automating password update requests. Since COVID-19, and remote working—we had most of our staff working from home within three weeks of lockdown—we recognized that more people wanted to help themselves and ultimately getting to self-service and to self-healing is our longer-term goal.” 

The experience in Romania is expected to influence decisions across the RBI group. Romania established a viable proof of concept for deployments elsewhere, accelerating future rollouts. 

“We’re now in a continuous state of development,” adds Samfira. “We’re looking at Active Directory integration and a broader integration with our departments across the business. We know we can improve the process already in place and find new processes to implement.”

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