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Three lessons from Riverty's 100-day customer care transformation

How can businesses turn AI ambitions into measurable business value?
At Di BankTech in Stockholm, Timo Reis, Global Operations Excellence Lead at Riverty, shared how the company successfully rolled out a unified, AI-ready customer care platform for two business lines across eight European markets in just 100 days. The transformation delivered faster response times, more efficient operations and around €1 million in annual savings — while establishing a scalable foundation for further automation and AI adoption.

Oct 15, 2026

Artificial intelligence (AI) offers significant opportunities to improve customer service, automate routine tasks and increase operational efficiency. But turning those opportunities into measurable business value requires more than technology alone.

It requires the right operational foundation, disciplined execution and employees who can effectively use new capabilities in their daily work.

These were the central themes of Riverty's customer care transformation, presented by Timo Reis at Dagens industri's BankTech conference in Stockholm on October 14.

Faced with a fragmented customer service landscape and an unexpected need to replace one of its core platforms, Riverty used the opportunity to accelerate its transformation journey.

Within just 100 days, the company implemented a unified customer care platform supporting:

Two major business lines across eight European markets
440 users working in four languages
Three communication channels: phone, email and chat

The transformation delivered measurable operational improvements, including:

66% faster response times — from 38 to 13 seconds
35% fewer misrouted customer contacts
18% reduction in average handling time
20% fewer customer contacts overall
Around €1 million in annual savings

Beyond these improvements, the project established an important foundation for Riverty's broader customer service transformation and future AI capabilities.

1. Build the right foundation before scaling AI

AI can create significant value in customer service, but scaling it across different markets and business processes requires a consistent operational and technological foundation.

Historically, Riverty's customer service landscape had evolved into a fragmented environment, with eight different platforms supporting operations across multiple markets.

This fragmentation created challenges for operational visibility, standardisation, reporting and the ability to scale automation and AI initiatives efficiently.

When one of Riverty's core customer service platforms unexpectedly reached the end of its lifecycle, the company faced an important decision: simply replace the existing technology or use the opportunity to rethink its approach to customer care.

Riverty chose the latter.

Rather than attempting to consolidate the entire landscape at once, the immediate focus was on implementing a unified, scalable solution for two business lines operating across eight European markets.

The platform selection was guided by 44 functional requirements, including omnichannel capabilities, multilingual support, real-time reporting, regulatory requirements and readiness for future AI applications.

The solution also needed to support substantial operational volumes, including approximately 60,000 calls and 40,000 emails per month.

Importantly, the decision was not driven by the number of AI features available.

The priority was to select a platform that could support operational requirements, enable future automation and be implemented within a demanding timeframe.

The project therefore represented an important milestone towards a more standardised customer service landscape, rather than the completion of Riverty's broader platform consolidation journey.

The lesson: Build the foundation before deploying AI at scale. Technology selection should be driven by operational requirements, scalability and the ability to execute — not simply by feature availability.

“AI is becoming increasingly accessible. We’re testing new AI tools, then analysing and structuring our data to explore how we can use them in debt collection.”

— Timo Reis

2. Prioritise execution over perfection

Transforming customer service across multiple European markets is complex, even under normal circumstances.

For Riverty, the challenge was intensified by a non-negotiable deadline.

The team had just 100 days to implement the new platform.

There was no pilot phase, no possibility of extending the timeline and no alternative system to fall back on.

Delivering within this timeframe required a highly disciplined approach to execution.

The project focused on four principles:

Strict scope management: Prioritising essential requirements and postponing non-critical functionality.
Daily governance: Maintaining visibility of progress, risks and dependencies.
Fast decision-making: Removing obstacles quickly rather than allowing decisions to delay implementation.
Strong cross-market collaboration: Aligning stakeholders, business requirements and implementation activities across countries.

This last point was particularly important.

Implementing a shared platform across eight markets requires alignment between teams with different processes, priorities and operational realities.

While the programme successfully delivered within the required timeframe, the experience also highlighted an important learning: investing even more in early cross-market alignment can make subsequent execution smoother and more efficient.

With the new platform in place, customer interactions across the two business lines could be managed through a more consistent omnichannel environment.

The operational improvements included faster response times, more effective contact routing and reduced handling times.

The transformation also contributed to significant efficiency improvements and recurring financial benefits.

However, the achievement went beyond the initial performance gains.

By establishing a shared platform, Riverty created a foundation for more consistent operations, improved visibility and continued process optimisation.

The lesson: Execution beats perfection. Clear priorities, rapid decisions and strong cross-market alignment enable organisations to deliver meaningful change at speed.

“Voicebots and AI can make it less uncomfortable for customers to deal with debt collection matters compared with speaking to a human agent. Our data shows that many customers prefer talking to a voicebot when discussing collection fees.”

— Timo Reis

3. Put people and business value first

Technology alone does not create business value.

The benefits of transformation depend on how effectively employees adopt new ways of working and how consistently organisations translate new capabilities into operational improvements.

For Riverty, employee adoption was therefore an essential part of the transformation.

Key users were involved early, training focused on practical daily activities and implementation governance ensured that operational feedback could be addressed quickly.

The objective was straightforward: make everyday work easier.

A unified platform reduces the need to navigate multiple systems, improves access to relevant information and simplifies routine tasks.

For customer service employees, these improvements matter more than the technical capabilities behind the platform.

The questions are simple: Does the new solution save time? Does it reduce unnecessary steps? Does it help resolve customer enquiries more efficiently?

This same focus on practical value also guides Riverty's approach to AI and automation.

Rather than prioritising initiatives based on technological possibilities alone, potential use cases are evaluated against their expected business impact.

Examples of estimated annual savings opportunities include:

€116,000 from automated responses to frequently asked questions
€185,000 from automated responses to invoice enquiries
€427,000 from automated email handling

These figures represent estimated automation opportunities and should be distinguished from the operational benefits already realised through the platform transformation.

With the new foundation in place, Riverty is continuing to explore and expand AI-enabled capabilities, including automated contact categorisation, intent recognition, case summaries, quality insights and more advanced automation.

The long-term objective is not simply to introduce more AI.

It is to integrate AI into operational processes in ways that improve efficiency, support employees and deliver measurable business value.

Routine activities can increasingly be automated, allowing employees to focus more on complex customer situations where human judgement and empathy remain essential.

The lesson: People — not technology alone — create ROI. Successful AI adoption starts with real operational needs, employee acceptance and a clear business case for every use case.

“The more complex the case, the greater the need for an empathetic human specialist.”

— Timo Reis

From AI ambition to measurable business value

Riverty's 100-day transformation demonstrates that meaningful operational change does not require organisations to solve every technology challenge at once.

By implementing a unified customer care platform for two business lines across eight European markets, Riverty delivered measurable improvements while taking an important step towards a more scalable and AI-ready operating model.

Three lessons stand out:

Build the foundation before scaling AI.

Prioritise execution over perfection.

Put people and measurable business value first.

These principles extend well beyond customer service. They apply to any organisation seeking to turn digital transformation and AI ambitions into tangible operational results.

Because ultimately, the value of AI is not measured by the number of use cases launched, but by the business outcomes they deliver.

Technology enables transformation. Execution delivers it.