How Adyen’s Customer Support Simplifies Global Payments With Aircall + Zendesk

In the past week, you’ve probably conducted a financial transaction through Adyen’s unified commerce payments platform without knowing it. With customers ranging from tech giants like Airbnb and Spotify to retail staples like Gap, Adyen is the unsung hero behind billions of dollars in payments each year.

Since they process all common payment methods and provide a straightforward pricing structure, Adyen has become the leading Payment Service Provider for brands that love growth and hate complicated logistics. In-store, online, and mobile transactions are covered by one single platform.

But even though Adyen makes payments as easy as possible, they operate in a complicated industry, and complex questions can arise.

Any company that boasts simplicity and efficiency needs a customer support structure that delights and empowers its customers with every conversation.

Measuring Success With Empathy and Education

Armed with context, expertise, and some serious people skills, Adyen’s Operational Support Team not only answers current inquiries, but proactively addresses future ones through consultation and education.

According to Lisanne van Kessel, Adyen’s Operational Support Team Lead, success isn’t only measured using standard CS metrics, like average reply time. They strive to recognize larger trends and work across teams to ensure a seamless customer experience.

“Instead of just answering the first question our customers have, we really try to explain what’s going on... We want to help train them to become experts in our platform. That way they can find what they need before it becomes necessary to reach out.”

And despite the productivity-boosting benefits of solving issues before they begin, Adyen's philosophy is based on human-first principles.

“Adyen is in a unique position compared to traditional support teams. We like to think of ourselves as business partners with our customers... Payment is such a vital function, the best outcome for everyone is if we can show them how to quickly find their own answers.”

Using the Right Tools for the Job

Answering global customer inquiries with efficiency and empathy is no small task. Success requires the right company culture and tools that enhance workflows. For Adyen’s Customer Support team, this means speaking directly to the customer on the phone.

“One of our core values as a company is ‘we don’t hide behind emails’.** When email conversations go back and forth there might be some sort of misunderstanding. It’s always faster to pick up the phone. You might hear their frustrations clearer or understand the situation better… and it’s always good to know there’s an actual person working to help you.”

(**It’s true, you can see for yourself on Adyen’s ‘about’ page)

While the phone is a useful ally in advancing the Customer Support team’s goals, the antiquated tech they were using wasn’t a good fit for the fast-scaling business Adyen had become.

“We were literally typing while holding desk phones between our shoulders and ears. It was not a very healthy or sustainable solution.”

Aircall offered Adyen an elegant and modern phone system that met three important criteria.

Easy Implementation

With payments processing 24/7, Adyen didn’t want to sacrifice even a day of service time for switching phone systems. Aircall’s fast set up allowed service representatives to stay connected to customers with minimal down time.

Flexible Structure

Adyen’s brand mentality is focused on growth. This means making positive adjustments based on the best information available. With Aircall, the Operational Support team can create international numbers, add users, and adjust call structures instantly without a call to the IT department.

Actionable Insights

With traditional phone systems, Adyen’s support teams had to collect phone data through a lengthy auditing process. This labor-intensive task has been optimized using Aircall’s analytics features. Now, trends in call volume and subject matter are easily identified.

These aspects of Aircall’s cloud-based approach were must-haves, but an intuitive integration with current customer support tools added another layer of intelligence to their operations.

Aircall + Zendesk Gives Superior Context to Conversations

Adyen’s customer support reps work best when they can see a complete history of the customer they’re assisting.

Aircall’s Zendesk integration provides the necessary context to have productive and personalized support conversations. Every call is automatically logged to the correct customer profile, including call data such as date/time, agent notes, and a link to the complete call recording.

“Every tool we use is synced with Zendesk. From our phone system to the decision tree that guides representatives on where they can quickly find answers. It’s all in one place.”

Furthermore, repeat callers’ history will be displayed in Zendesk the instant a call starts. This shared knowledge allows Adyen’s customer support team to provide accurate and insightful consultations — whether the call is answered at their Amsterdam or Singapore offices.

Always looking for ways to improve, Van Kessel is interested in using Aircall’s analytics to create even smarter call assignment rules. Routing calls based on geo-identifiers and directing repeat-callers to the same agent they’ve previously spoken to are on her to do list.

“Even if the last time a customer called was months ago, I think it’d be cool if they spoke to the same representative. This creates a sense of community between us and our customers.”

Shared Culture

Access to data helps the Operational Support team make informed decisions, but beyond mere features, Van Kessel says that company fit played a large role in choosing Aircall.

“Aircall’s startup mentality and tech-first approach was something we recognized. In the beginning, if something was unclear, or if there was a feature we thought would be useful, the team at Aircall was very responsive — helping us find workarounds and discussing how functionality could be added to the product roadmap. We understand the ‘no is not an answer’ mindset!”