Let’s face it; last year was rubbish all around. The impact of COVID-19 was sudden, and no business was prepared for the repercussions.
As a payroll software provider, we needed to keep our cool and ensure our clients came first. Payroll was a major consideration for businesses that were rapidly changing their workforce, from furlough to the mass offboarding of temporary workers in the hardest-hit sectors.
Our mission was to bring Codapay up to speed with all the overnight changes, and to ensure we were always there if our clients needed us. A year later, we’re stronger than before and believe that existing customers come first more than ever.
In this article, we’ll cover how we activated our response to the pandemic and supported our clients.
How we ensured our customers stayed supported
We took a proactive approach to priming our solution with everything it needed to handle complex payroll tasks and ensured our support team were well resourced in anticipation of increased requests. Plus, we took a temporary step back from payment deadlines and strict contract terms to take the stress away from our clients.
Let’s dive into the specifics below.
- Functionality
Our main objective was to ensure Codapay was equipped with everything our clients needed to run payroll accurately considering workforce changes. With onboarding and offboarding requirements and the introduction of furlough, we worked fast to bring Codapay up to speed. Plus, we kept our customers in the know every step of the way so it’s one less thing they had to worry about.
Here’s some of the functionality we introduced:
- Our furlough functionality was spec’d out and live within 48 hours of the announcement, ensuring all furlough payments were correct and in line with government guidelines
- All key legislation changes were supported by Codapay, including IR35, far in advance
- Our technical team updated Codapay fortnightly with new features and patches to ensure it’s always running as expected, with ongoing improvements
- Support
The last thing you want when dealing with a problem is listening to an annoying hold tone or waiting around for an email. We scaled up our support offering in 2020, hiring additional support specialists to tighten up our service agreements. This meant we could offer support that’s better than ever – and this is something we’re continually looking to improve!
Here’s how we ramped up our customer services over the pandemic:
- We maintained 30-minute response times on our support desk and were rated 4.54/5.00 in Q1 2021 and 4.59/5.00 in Q2 2021!
- All our clients were assigned a dedicated Account Manager to discuss account-related issues, including concerns about their financial position
- We always kept our clients in the loop with any important feature updates and urged them to contact us if they faced any issues. Direct phone calls were best in this instance to reassure our clients that they aren’t just numbers to us
- Finances
Understandably, finances were a considerable worry for businesses last year. Payroll companies were hit too, with lockdowns leading to reduced temp roles and the domino effect of revenue loss. Employment and placement opportunities were diminished, in some cases causing a loss of turnover.
In light of this, our customers had the opportunity to defer payments, removing any deadlines or prompts until they were in a better financial position. Our 3-month payment holiday was available to all our clients without question.
A massive thank you to our clients!
Let us use this opportunity to thank our clients who have offered us their loyalty at a difficult time. As for us, we’re thrilled to be a growing company with a long pipeline of upcoming features, as well as continual service updates to optimise user experience.
Also, a quick reminder to our clients that we welcome new feature requests and any feedback – good or bad – on our ticketing system. Your input is valuable to us!
Now the restrictions are easing, we wish everyone a prosperous 2021 and beyond. Onwards and upwards!
