How Retorna reduced its response times by 92% and scaled its support during rapid growth
Rapid growth is a good problem to have… until it isn't.
Many fintechs face the same challenge: a constant surge in users and transactions that overwhelms their support teams.
At Retorna, this challenge is amplified when the banks and other financial institutions they rely on experience incidents, which impacts the customer experience and drives up response times.
automation backed by a 98 % SLA
with the same support team
About Retorna
Retorna is a fintech specialized in international money transfers, focusing on corridors where financial inclusion makes a real difference in people's lives. Through its mobile app and online platform, it allows individuals and businesses to send money quickly, securely, and transparently, adhering to the highest standards of regulatory compliance.
Operating across multiple international corridors with 24/7 support available, Retorna combines technological innovation with a steadfast commitment: ensuring that every migrant, family, and business that trusts the platform receives a reliable and human-centric service.
Problem
As Retorna's user base grew, so did the volume of inquiries: transfer status updates, FAQs about fees, crediting times, and verification processes. The operation, relying heavily on conversational channels like WhatsApp, required the next level of professionalization: a platform that could unify the experience across channels, provide full traceability for every interaction, and free up the human team to focus on the cases that need it most.
The challenge was to scale without losing quality or the personal touch, especially during times of high demand generated by external dependencies within the financial ecosystem.
Goal
Retorna’s goal was clear from the start: to ensure every user receives fast and clear answers to their frequent inquiries, and that the human team is always available, with full context, for cases requiring personalized attention, regulatory guidance, formal complaint management, or support in sensitive situations.
The strategy: to combine intelligent automation for first-level queries with a specialized human team for everything that requires judgment, empathy, and expert knowledge.
"We closed February with a 98 % SLA compliance rate for response times and a CSAT score of 4.44 out of 5. Scaling like this without sacrificing quality is exactly what we were aiming for".
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100% manual support and unoptimized operations
Without automation or standardized workflows, queries had to be resolved manually by a team of 13 full-time and 4 part-time agents.
Routine questions, such as transfer statuses, the primary reason for contact, making up roughly 40 % of all customer communications, required agents to check internal systems one by one in order to respond.
Lack of visibility and control over customer support
The absence of a centralized platform prevented Retorna from monitoring and measuring conversations.
Furthermore, because processing transactions relies on international banks and external entities, any downtime or incident on their end caused delays in Retorna's money transfers. This generated sudden spikes in ticket volume that were difficult to manage manually.
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Faced with these challenges, Retorna turned to Hubtype to optimize its customer support.
The implementation was phased, starting with routine tasks so that the team could focus on what truly required human attention. The results were organized across four key areas:
Scalability in High-Volume Channels
Working alongside Hubtype, Retorna redesigned its WhatsApp support using conversational AI, replacing 100 % manual processes while preserving the personal touch.
Today, the team manages all multichannel conversations from a single platform, where they can monitor metrics, meet SLAs, and maintain full visibility and control over every interaction.
Notably, human agents view this solution as a complement that empowers their work, allowing them to focus on higher-value interactions.
Efficiency Connected to Internal Systems
To deliver precise responses, Retorna integrated its API and Salesforce directly into the conversational workflow.
As a result, the bot identifies users seamlessly without requesting upfront data.
The most significant use case is "Track Transfer": the bot queries internal data in real time to update users on their transaction status. This process, which previously required manual intervention, is now resolved in seconds and absorbs nearly 40 % of the total query volume.
Furthermore, using Smart Intents, the system identifies user intent to route them to the appropriate workflow or agent.
The bot also guides new users through the registration and identity verification (KYC) process, accelerating lead-to-customer conversion for Retorna.
Intelligent Automation with an AI Agent
Retorna launched its AI Agent for Customer Service.
This agent is capable of driving more natural and personalized conversations, resolving higher-complexity cases, and continuously improving through quality analytics.
Resilience During High-Demand Spikes and Contingencies
To ensure customers receive clear, continuous communication even during external incidents, Retorna relies on Hubtype’s Flow Builder, which allows for real-time workflow adjustments to absorb traffic spikes.
The Agent AI Copilot has been instrumental in this optimization: the average first response time plummeted from 5 hours and 44 minutes to just 9 minutes, while customer wait times during conversations dropped from 2 hours to 3 minutes.
Thanks to this real-time assistance, the volume of inquiries requiring human intervention decreased from 44 % to 28 %.
This ecosystem ensures that onboarding automation and recurring query management maintain service quality without losing operational control.
Impact
Retorna has transformed its customer support alongside Hubtype, achieving a 72 % first-contact resolution rate for routine queries, a 98 % SLA compliance for response times, and a 4.44/5 CSAT score.
The model’s efficiency stands out particularly in contingency management: thanks to the AI Copilot and seamless integrations, response times plummeted from 4 hours to just 18 minutes (in exactly 4 months), driving automation during critical moments from 59 % to 81 %.
This setup allows the bot to resolve routine inquiries while the human team focuses on complex cases, successfully absorbing business growth with the exact same resources.
The end result is an agile, scalable, and secure service that prioritizes customer data privacy.
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8-week implementation
Transitioning from 100 % manual support to an automated, omnichannel model, rolled out progressively by country.
72 % first-contact resolution for routine queries
With seamless handoffs to human agents for complex cases that require it.
92 % reduction in response times during contingencies
Dropping from hours of waiting to a response in just 18 minutes, ensuring service continuity even during external outages.
22,000 to 25,000 users supported per month
While consistently maintaining a 98 % SLA compliance rate for response times.
4.44/5 CSAT score
A rating that reflects high user satisfaction with the support provided, which is now faster and more consistent.
32 % reduction in agent workload during contingencies
Successfully managing 41 % more ticket volume without degrading service quality.
What’s next
Retorna and Hubtype continue moving forward to expand automation and personalization through:
New channels: Going live on Instagram and other platforms to unify their digital presence.
Advanced integrations: Enabling the AI Agent to automatically open tickets in Retorna’s CRM for cases requiring internal management, and leveraging customer segmentation to prioritize support for recurring or high-value users.
Proactive communication: Automating outreach at key moments (such as onboarding drop-offs or post-contingency updates) using behavior-triggered messages.
With these advancements, the team can focus purely on high-value support with highly measurable processes, while Hubtype continues to bring its expertise as a strategic partner.
Join the leaders of the industry
Contact our sales team and we can prepare a personalized demo for the use case, queries and channels you need.