Speed, autonomy, and scale
As a bank without brick-and-mortar branches that serves more than 2.5 million clients across Canada, Tangerine considers excellent customer experience a top priority. Today, that includes scaling up its digital self-help capabilities to meet the changing needs of its clients.
This means, instead of client care associates in Tangerine’s call center handling the bulk of routine questions – How do I log in? What’s my withdrawal limit? – banking customers could get most of the information they need right from the website or app, served up by a chatbot. The associates’ time could then be reserved to answer more complex questions.
But the award-winning bank’s previous chat channel had some limitations, and they were dependent on the vendor to manage their bot. If they needed to make any content updates, they had to reach out to the vendor with a detailed request. The process was complicated.
Another pain point? When the old chatbot couldn’t sufficiently answer a question, it would frequently provide a phone number for the customer to call, rather than keeping them chatting in their communication channel of choice. Not an ideal experience.
Tangerine needed a solution that could be deployed rapidly with minimal internal resources while granting their business teams the autonomy to make quick updates.
ASAPP was brought on board to help them meet two main objectives: improving the client experience and call center efficiency. How quickly did they need this to happen? As soon as possible, of course.
Fast deployment with business autonomy
ASAPP addressed Tangerine’s need for speed and autonomy.
- Rapid, low-code deploymentFollowing a successful Proof of Concept (POC), the solution was launched on Android within two months, on iOS the following month, and on the web the month after. The ASAPP deployment required minimal resources, allowing them to move fast without using a full internal tech team.
- Business autonomyASAPP’s research-based, intuitive design equipped Tangerine’s business teams to easily update content as needed and quickly make changes to Virtual Agent flows without having to rely on third-party vendors, a vast improvement over their previous model.
- Rapid adoptionTangerine associates were quick to adopt the new chat tool, enabling them to comfortably handle a higher volume of chats within just two days of the launch.
It really was seamless. We launched the chatbot on mobile and web in just three months. Over the months that followed we looked at the data, made more than 200 optimizations, and we’ve been very happy with the results.
ASAPP addressed Tangerine’s need for speed and autonomy. In October 2025, Tangerine overcame the final hurdle: allowing clients who needed help from a live associate to stay within the chat channel, rather than pick up a phone and join the call center queue.
The result? As of January 2026:
It’s win-win for our clients who get a better experience, and for our associates who get an updated platform to do their jobs. — Lora Paglia, COO
Measurable performance at scale
69%First contact resolution
↑70%Concurrency
89% Utilization rate
74%Occupancy
12.1 minAvg. handling time
ASAPP value delivered
- Agility and speedThe collaboration was defined by a willingness to match Tangerine’s desire to "move fast," enabling back-to-back launches across two mobile channels and the bank’s web platform in a single quarter.
- Partnership and flexibilityASAPP demonstrated a strong commitment to problem-solving. Engineers joined calls to resolve issues within hours or days, and the team showed a willingness to adapt the tool to meet the bank’s robust risk policies.
- Empowerment through knowledgeRather than providing "200 pages of docs," the ASAPP team provided customized training and built initial flows to show impact, empowering the Tangerine team to learn and manage the system independently.
The platform was so intuitive. Associates were noticeably more efficient within just a couple of days of launch. That was great to see.
The future
Tangerine aims to keep balancing in-house development with proven capabilities from partners like ASAPP. As part of this approach, and while migrating to a new voice platform, the bank is exploring the use of GenerativeAgent®, now part of ASAPP’s Customer Experience Platform (CXP).
This year, Tangerine has also been launching proactive chats on website campaign pages to increase client engagement and help them with any inquiries.
A partner built for enterprise CX
For Tangerine, speed alone wasn’t the differentiator—partnership was. ASAPP didn’t just deliver a platform; it worked alongside Tangerine’s teams to remove friction, adapt to risk and compliance requirements, and accelerate learning from day one. By combining a turnkey deployment model with hands-on collaboration and business-led control, ASAPP enabled Tangerine to move quickly without sacrificing governance, agent experience, or customer trust.
That foundation is now allowing Tangerine to think beyond a single channel. With a proven operating model in place, the bank is positioned to scale AI-driven self-service across voice and digital channels—confident that it has both the technology and the partner needed to support continuous evolution.
