How Kiwibank reduced support calls by 30% with real-time in-app messaging

I'm very happy to share our latest case study with Kiwibank, which ranks #1 in Kantar's 2025 Corporate Reputation Index. This partnership demonstrates exactly why I'm so passionate about in-app messaging's potential to transform how financial institutions engage their customers.

The results speak for themselves: a 30% reduction in card reissue-related support calls in just three months, alongside a complete transformation in how Kiwibank's teams deploy customer communications.

You can find the full Kiwibank Atomic In-app Messaging Case Study here.

The challenge: when good intentions meet operational reality

Like many banks, Kiwibank faced a frustrating disconnect between wanting to communicate effectively with over a million customers and actually being able to do it. Their existing in-app messaging was difficult to configure, slow to deploy, and frankly, often ignored by customers.

As Kiwibank's team put it: "Forever and a day, our industry talked about the right message, right channel, right time. It always felt that was a bit of a clichéd holy grail... but perhaps we've actually started bridging that gap now, with Atomic.io helping to enable this."

The timing couldn't have been more critical. With consumer awareness of fraud and scams rising, the security of 1:1 communication within authenticated banking environments had become not just a nice-to-have, but essential infrastructure.

Partnership-driven innovation in banking

What I love most about this engagement is how it exemplified our approach to customer partnerships. Rather than simply delivering a platform, we became a true extension of Kiwibank's team.

This meant:

• Deep integration support: end-to-end assistance across their mobile and internet banking platforms

• Aligned delivery: matching their sprint cycles and internal timelines

• Co-design mindset: building solutions alongside their team, not just for them

But the real breakthrough came when Kiwibank needed to integrate with Salesforce Marketing Cloud. We didn't just say "that's possible" – we built the capability in partnership, making Kiwibank the first bank in New Zealand to connect Atomic.io with Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

Real business impact in banking customer engagement

The results have been transformational across multiple dimensions:

Operational efficiency: proactive alerts for fraud and holiday-related disruptions now reach customers instantly in-app, dramatically reducing avoidable calls and freeing frontline staff for higher-value interactions.

Speed to market: messages that previously took a full day to launch now go live in under an hour. In many organisations, creating and delivering a customer message can take an entire sprint cycle – we've helped Kiwibank reduce this to minutes.

Marketing agility: the marketing team now operates with far greater independence, designing and optimising campaigns based on real-time customer feedback without waiting for IT development cycles.

Cost reduction: significantly reduced ongoing maintenance compared to building and maintaining an internal messaging system.

The Salesforce Marketing Cloud integration breakthrough

As a trusted Salesforce partner, we were able to engineer a custom plugin that created a click-based, UI-friendly orchestration layer. This integration allows Kiwibank to leverage their existing tech stack without adding complexity – something their team called "a breakthrough in execution."

The result? Personalised, data-triggered in-app messages delivered at scale, all driven by customer behaviour and existing CRM data.

What this means for banking's future

This case study reinforces something I've believed for years: the future of banking customer engagement isn't about adding more channels – it's about making the channels you own work harder and smarter.

Banks spend enormous resources driving customers to their apps, yet many struggle to communicate effectively within those same apps. When you can deliver the right message, in the right context, at the right moment – all within your owned digital experience – the business impact is immediate and measurable.

As Kiwibank's team reflected: "It's enabled a more proactive, personalised and responsive experience, which aligns with our commitment to putting the customer at the heart of everything we do."

Looking ahead

This partnership continues to evolve, with Kiwibank expanding into richer, real-time messaging across broader customer journeys. For us at Atomic, it validates our core belief that the best customer relationships are built through genuine partnership, not just platform delivery.

The banking industry is experiencing a fundamental shift in customer expectations around digital communication. Organisations that embrace real-time, contextual, secure in-app messaging will create significant competitive advantages in customer satisfaction, operational efficiency, and team productivity.

For financial services leaders evaluating their customer engagement strategy, the Kiwibank case study demonstrates that transformation doesn't require wholesale system replacement – it requires the right partner, the right platform, and a commitment to putting customer experience first.