Why and how we built a new platform (from the ground up).

Here at Green Flag, we’ve built a brand-new platform that we use to help our customers. Building a platform from the ground up isn’t easy, but as Jeremy Bristow explains, it’s been well worth it.

Why did our?original system need upgrading/replacing?

It’s a familiar story really. It was outdated and wasn’t fit for the modern world. It took ages to make any changes or fix problems, it was expensive to run, and we couldn't offer customers useful digital solutions as the technologies were incompatible.

So, it’s safe to say we needed a change.

What were the main benefits of building our platform from the ground up?

Put simply, it meant we could build what we wanted in the way we wanted it to work.

Buying a pre-made system may seem like a simpler option, but it often means you need to adapt the ways you work to fit your technology stack.

There are a few tech solutions out there that can do similar things. But if everyone has the same solution then how can you stand out from the competition?

As Henry Ford said, "any customer can have a car painted any colour they want, so long?as it is black."

When you build something yourself, it’s built around you, so you can create real differentiation from your competitors.

We’ve moved from a monolithic system to a microservice architecture – why’s this so important?

A microservice architecture gives us flexibility and lets us make changes quickly.

In our old monolithic systems, we were lucky to do four releases a year, just because there was so much testing required. A microservice architecture lets us work on connected platforms at different paces and test them independently.

We’ve gone from being able to do four releases a year to over 500. Not a bad jump.

You can find out more about our microservice architecture in this article.

How are we using data to improve customer experience?

Data is crucial to us and informs all our decision making. It’s the fuel for our machine and constantly drives us forward.

Everything we do in EcoSystem is recorded and stored in our data-lake, meaning we can create valuable insight into every interaction we have with our customers. As we get more and more data, we can start to use more advanced data products (such as AI and machine learning) to drive better propositions and improve the service every customer receives.

Our Head of Data wrote a great article on what data means to us.

We recently launched Amazon Connect – what does this allow us to do?

I’m really excited by this one. I actually feel bad putting it so late in the article, but we’ll end on a high.

Amazon Connect lets us 'digitise' the experience our customers have on the phone. We’re able to help people with simple queries, without them having to wait to speak to one of our agents (who may be busy with a complex rescue).

There’s a lot we can do with this, and a great example is our Technician ETA feature.

Our data shows that the most common reason a customer calls us more than once is to get an update on where their technician is. The Technician ETA feature on the phone recognises the customer’s telephone number, knows that the customer is in the middle of a rescue, and it then offers the customer an automated update using ‘Alexa’ technology.

This ultimately means the customer gets an answer to their question quickly, and our call centre agents are free to help with more complex customer queries or rescues. Win-win!

As I mentioned, when you build your own system, you’re able to make it work around you and your customers’ needs. So, there’s plenty more to come, and I can’t wait to see what we can do in the future.?