Since its establishment in 1984 Paymark has grown to process over 75% of New Zealand’s electronic point of sale transactions, and has become critical to the day-to-day operations of most retailers. To support its clients, the company operates a large call centre that fields numerous queries every day. Having quick access to correct, up to date, customer-specific information when a call comes in is essential. On top of that, the nature of its business – payments processing – means Paymark must operate according to stringent protocols. That means staff also need access to a comprehensive, up to date knowledge base when handling customer issues. SharePoint 2013 allowed Paymark and Intergen to build The Hub, a new intranet to not only house Paymark’s knowledge base and customer databases; but also to deliver a revised, updated (and easily updated in future) knowledge base accessible to all staff (not just those in the call centre); and to create a revised document management system for managing procedures, technical design, letters and the myriad other documents that would normally go on a file server. More information: http://www.intergen.co.nz/Our-Work/Paymark/

1. case study
FINANCIAL SERVICES
Increasing connectivity
with The Hub
PAYMARK
Getting knowledge into the
right hands, at the right time
with SharePoint 2013
THE SITUATION
“We are starting to link other
systems to The Hub, like
entering a customer’s number
and getting their full range of
customer information. We’re
starting to aggregate the
information into a companywide, all-staff-access data
source, hugely streamlining
relationships with customers
across the board.”
Damon Cowley
Infrastructure and Security Manager
Paymark Business
Since its establishment in 1984 Paymark
has grown to process over 75% of
New Zealand’s electronic point of sale
transactions, and has become critical
to the day-to-day operations of
most retailers.
To support its clients, the company
operates a large call centre that fields
numerous queries every day. Having quick
access to correct, up to date, customerspecific information when a call comes in
is essential. On top of that, the nature of
its business – payments processing –
means Paymark must operate according to
stringent protocols. That means staff also
need access to a comprehensive, up to
date knowledge base when handling
customer issues.
Christmas 2012, which saw a record
number of transactions, made it clear that
Paymark’s existing content management
system was reaching the limits of its
capability.
At the same time, Paymark was looking to
transform itself, having operated as a
typical large business, with HR, finance,
marketing, sales and customer service
departments each a discrete unit. While
that structure had served the business
well, it, too, had reached the end of its
useful life. It was time to create a team
culture, free from “borders”.
The pain
The knowledge and content management
systems Paymark was using had been
created at a time when each division of
the company each had its own, specific
customer database. Consequently,
customer information
was split across up to eight locations,
making it hard to find the right
information quickly.
Moreover, using the knowledge database
was not straightforward. As a result,
certain policies and procedures were well
understood by some staff members, but
not all, knowledge was fragmented, and
company policies were not always applied
consistently.
One impact was delays in customer service
as staff sourced the information needed
to manage a customer query. A second
impact was on the company culture and
morale, as staff tended to operate in silos,
with a limited sense of team across the
whole business.

2. Damon Cowley, Paymark Infrastructure
and Security Manager Business, says that
in order to future-proof Paymark’s
business:
»» The information to answer customer
service queries needed to be
accessible – quickly and reliably.
»» To keep staff trained and up-to-date,
Paymark’s Knowledge Base (and
access to it) had to transform.
»» For Paymark to maintain its position
as the market leader all information
needed to be current and accurate.
The technology
SharePoint 2013 allowed Paymark and
Intergen to build The Hub, a new intranet
to not only house Paymark’s knowledge
base and customer databases; but also to
deliver a revised, updated (and easily
updated in future) knowledge base
accessible to all staff (not just those in the
call centre); and to create a revised
document management system for
managing procedures, technical design,
letters and the myriad other documents
that would normally go on a file server.
The delivery
Once Microsoft SharePoint 2013 had been
selected as the technology solution, the
major selling point for Paymark was
Intergen’s flexibility. “They could do whole
thing [solutions architecture, design and
implementation], but were willing for us
to lead and run it with our knowledge
team,” says Damon. “That was valuable to
us, because we understand the product
and what it can do.”
The architecture was therefore developed
as an iterative process: “Two weeks with
the developers on site, then we’d play with
it for a week, and they’d come back, and
we’d say we’d like to try this. As the
project progressed, more and more ideas
came forward.”
The project is being implemented in four
stages: Infrastructure (completed August
2013), the intranet (which went live in
September 2013), the development and
populating of the all-important Paymark
Knowledge Base (currently under way),
AUCKLAND
CHRIS TCHURCH
and, finally, document management
systems, scheduled for autumn 2014.
“It’s a two-year process,” says Damon. “It
took a long time to get the business
aligned, and it’s important not to be
driven just by technology. We had to train
people to stop using the technology they
were used to. We’ve created a governance
team that makes decisions about what
information gets saved and what doesn’t.
That’s the most important piece of any
SharePoint 2013 implementation, as it
stops it becoming big and unwieldy.”
The Business Case
For Paymark’s interactions to be
effective, information must flow
easily to where it’s needed – whether
to someone in the call centre, to a
technician solving a customer
problem, to management, or to
anyone else within the company.
“Intergen provided input there as well. We
knew we needed to do this work; Intergen
gave us content that helped us work
through what we needed to define.”
The Hub allows staff to find
information reliably and quickly,
creating confidence that information
uploaded to the intranet is safe,
secure and readily accessible –
removing any temptation for
individual staff members to keep
information on their personal
computer or simply in their head.
The gain
The Business Value
“Information is becoming more
accessible,” says Damon. “Previously, our
call centre had to follow a structured
menu to find information relevant to a
customer call. Now they enter keywords
and search queries, and get taken straight
to what they’re after.
»» A new level of visibility and
accessibility of information
“That’s already changing how we work.
People are going to the intranet for
information, because they know they’ll be
able to find it quickly. It’s important,
therefore, that we keep the intranet
current, and also include a news carousel
and events calendar to encourage people
to keep coming back.
“That, in turn, has reduced the number of
internal emails. Rather than information
being sent that way, people are using
the intranet.”
»» A marked rise in the ability
to deliver exceptional
customer service
»» A more knowledgeable
workforce
»» The breaking down of
departmental silos
»» A collaborative work
environment
»» ore confidence among staff
M
that they are getting the
support needed to do their job
The Engine Room
Microsoft SharePoint 2013
Paymark is now migrating information
from its old knowledge management
system to a wiki-style knowledge base and
“making it the way we want it,”
says Damon.
“So if a customer calls in and asks about a
particular terminal, we can search quickly
and find info about that terminal; for
example, what the error message they’re
getting means. That transaction feeds
back to the technical teams, so if we need
to escalate the issue up a level, that
happens quickly.”
DUNEDIN
MELBOURNE
PER TH
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