Adyen's Journey Toward Excellent, Scalable Customer Service with Salesforce and BRITE

Adyen’s Search for Alternatives: Why Salesforce and BRITE?

Adyen’s decision to implement Salesforce Service Cloud was the result of an extensive, six-month evaluation process, during which they carefully assessed various platforms based on a set of criteria tailored to their specific needs. Their main pain points with the original setup were:

1. Scalability: Adyen’s growth and the increasing complexity of its operations revealed limitations in Zendesk’s scalability. Despite its ease of installation, Zendesk lacked the enterprise-level features that Adyen needed.
2. Lack of integration: The use of different systems led to a lack of integration between Adyen’s operational and commercial teams, resulting in information silos and inefficiencies.
3. Need for Standardization: Adyen wanted to standardize processes across different teams and regions to ensure consistency and efficiency. The Zendesk framework allowed for fragmented work methods, which conflicted with Adyen’s goal of a uniform operational approach.

Salesforce stood out because of its robust scalability, integration capabilities, and potential to support Adyen's global and complex operational requirements.

The decision to partner with BRITE for the implementation was influenced by BRITE’s existing relationship with Adyen’s sales team, which was already familiar with and appreciated BRITE’s work. Karst, Business Operations Team Lead at Adyen, put it this way: “Our sales team knew them, liked them, and BRITE was already familiar with our way of working.” This combination of prior positive engagement and specialized knowledge made BRITE the obvious choice for Adyen as it transitioned to Salesforce Service Cloud.

“How to Eat an Elephant”: Adyen’s Phased Approach to System Implementation

So how do you migrate a global service operation from one system to another? The same way you tackle anything difficult: with good planning and small steps. Adyen wanted to avoid a “big bang” approach and therefore decided to make the transition in phases. To that end, Karst and his team had defined a number of success criteria in advance, including:

• Timely Implementation for Contract Renewal with Zendesk
• High data quality
• Data integration between different platforms and systems
• Assemble a team to effectively manage and operate the new system
• Standardization in Teams and Regions

BRITE’s first step was to assess Adyen’s needs and develop a customized Salesforce implementation plan. This involved defining a clear scope and timeline and identifying milestones. As Karst noted, BRITE brought the necessary expertise to create a scalable solution within Salesforce.

“BRITE understands our company inside and out. Our lead consultant demonstrated a remarkable ability to understand our needs and ensure that stakeholders felt heard without losing sight of our overarching goals. He constantly reminded us of the bigger picture and where Adyen is headed, and provided guidance and support to ensure our journey was effective.”

Karst, Business Operations Team Lead, Adyen

Overview of Adyen's Implementation Process

What both Adyen and BRITE considered most feasible was a three-phase implementation process:

• Early stages: This began with about 15 people in two different Operations groups in Amsterdam. This allowed for close monitoring and rapid iteration based on feedback, so that any issues could be addressed quickly.
• Gradual expansion: Following the initial success, the implementation was expanded to include more significant but isolated use cases, which accounted for approximately 10 to 15% of Adyen’s total volume. This step tested the system under more extensive operational conditions without fully committing all resources.
• Final Phase: In the final phase, the system was rolled out to the remaining 80% of users. By this point, the lessons learned and improvements from earlier phases had been incorporated, making the transition smoother for the vast majority of users.

Growing Through Feedback and Challenges

During the feedback collection phase, Adyen encountered a number of challenges. The most significant was that users initially found the new system cumbersome and unintuitive, which in turn affected the rate of adoption. However, through continuous refinement and improvements to the user interface and experience, based on user feedback, these obstacles were gradually overcome.

Adyen was at the helm throughout the project, but the company relied on BRITE's contributions, as Karst acknowledges:

"The quality of our collaboration with BRITE is exceptionally high. They have always taken a clear stance: 'You are Adyen; you make the final decisions. But we will provide input, options, and feedback—whether asked for or not—because that is where we add value.' This ethos has led to a number of robust discussions—challenging, yet always focused on improving Adyen."

Furthermore, the project's timeline was ambitious from the start, and that sometimes proved to be a challenge.

"I remember a conversation with one of the consultants who outlined the timeline for our project. It was November, and we had set a goal to go live in September. The consultant was concerned about whether we would be able to meet this deadline with the existing team. Hans was impressive enough to recruit the additional team members we needed within a few weeks to stay on track. I don’t know exactly how, but he mobilized people."

Karst

In the end, Adyen met the planned go-live date and launched a solution that had been thoroughly vetted in three implementation phases. Since then, the system has been continuously improved, with excellent results as of the time of this report.

Ambitious Goals: A Look at the Results

The implementation of Salesforce at Adyen enabled several key operational improvements, each of which contributed to a more efficient, consistent, and scalable approach to handling cases and customer interactions.

The following notable goals have been achieved:

1. Standardized case process ✅ By using Salesforce, Adyen was able to standardize its case management process. Unlike Zendesk, which could not provide the desired level of predictability and consistency, Salesforce enabled Adyen to maintain a consistent level of quality in the responses provided by its various teams.
2. Global Process Implementation ✅ Salesforce supported the implementation of a global process with customized variations, taking into account necessary complexities that the Zendesk configuration could not effectively manage. This global framework ensured a cohesive operational strategy across all of Adyen’s international offices.
3. Team Collaboration ✅ Salesforce and BRITE enabled Adyen to create a standardized handoff process with detailed handoff reasons, making the handling of cases between teams more efficient. This process includes 89 different handoff reasons, approved by senior leadership, to foster better understanding between teams.
4. Case Routing and Handling ✅ Using Salesforce, Adyen achieved a significant improvement in case routing accuracy—from less than one-third to 75%—ensuring that cases were assigned more efficiently to the right teams for resolution.
5. Integration Capabilities ✅ From the very beginning, Salesforce stood out for its superior integration capabilities, which enabled seamless connections with other systems and services.

Use Case: A Look at Adyen's Complex Onboarding Process for Retailers

The onboarding process for retailers illustrates the daily improvements achieved with Salesforce. Here is a simplified overview:

1. Initial Contact and Documentation: Retailers can submit the required documents directly through Salesforce or via another channel. These documents are then stored in Salesforce Service Cloud, making them easily accessible to all relevant teams.
2. Review and verification: After the documents have been collected, a team (Team A) verifies whether the retailer operates in an industry that Adyen can support in that country, taking into account any legal restrictions. If everything is in order, the case is forwarded to another team within Salesforce Service Cloud for further processing.
3. Identity verification: If there is a problem with the documentation—such as missing or unclear ID information—a second team (Team B) will contact the retailer to request clarification or additional documents. Once the issue is resolved, the case moves on to the next phase.
4. Risk Analysis: Taking into account the retailer’s industry and location, a third team (Team C) evaluates the potential risk posed by the retailer. For those deemed high-risk, Adyen may withhold a certain amount as a deposit to safeguard its interests.
5. Refund Management: If a customer disputes a charge, the retailer must prove that the transaction was legitimate. Various teams work together to manage the dispute, from contesting the chargeback to, if necessary, adjusting the retailer’s risk assessment and the required deposit.

Throughout this entire onboarding and management process, Salesforce Service Cloud serves as a central repository for all communication and updates, ensuring that every team is on the same page, understands why cases are being transferred, and knows what steps to take next.

Conclusion and Outlook

The successful and timely implementation of Salesforce Service Cloud, with BRITE’s guidance and expertise, has streamlined Adyen’s customer service and laid a strong foundation for sustainable growth and scalability.

In the future, BRITE’s consultants will gradually be replaced by Adyen’s in-house team. BRITE’s goal is not only to deliver solutions, but also to ensure that its partners are well-equipped to independently maintain and further develop the implemented systems. And as Karst put it, the culture that BRITE helped introduce will continue to exist:

"BRITE's most valuable contribution was their expertise in organizing work processes. Anyone can hit the bullseye once in a while. But consistent success requires the development of systems and a structured, standardized team. This collaboration has fostered a unique culture within Adyen that sets our team apart in a positive way. We’ve seen how effective our communication and delivery methods are, and we’ve received recognition across the board. And that’s something I want to preserve."