State Trustees of Victoria’s transformation puts clients at the centre.

The State Trustees of Victoria is a government-backed company providing financial and legal services to all Victorians during significant life moments. As independent trustees, consultants assist with will preparation, estate administration, and financial management for individuals who are unable to manage their own affairs due to disability, illness, or other reasons.

“We support some of the most vulnerable people in our community in their day-to-day living, and we take great pride in the responsibilities entrusted to us,” said Brett Comer, Chief Financial Officer and General Manager Corporate Services at State Trustees of Victoria.

The passing of the state Guardianship Administration Act (G&A Act) in 2019 enhanced the mission by updating the framework for appointing administrators and emphasising individuals' rights to have their wishes respected. This prompted the State Trustees team to evolve their processes to meet compliance requirements, maintain their service level, and meet customer needs.

Individuals who are at risk may lack the resources or support systems, like family or friends, to manage their financial and legal affairs independently. In some cases, without government intervention they can fall into a cycle of disadvantage, leading to further hardship. This is where organisations like the State Trustees come in, to safeguard individuals' well-being and uphold their rights, fostering a more inclusive and compassionate community.

"They could be transitioning from independent living to aged care, moving homes, or facing transient challenges. We might have individuals in very specialised areas, perhaps homeless or in prison. All of them require compassionate support,” Comer said.

At the core of the State Trustees team's mission was prioritising the client by embracing the G&A Act and adopting a holistic approach to truly knowing and understanding their clients. “We wanted to be able to differentiate our service based on client needs. That meant reimagining supporting processes and systems and establishing a unified practice and delivery model using contemporary tools on a single platform,” Comer explained.

State Trustees began with a strategic planning exercise supported by Salesforce Professional Services to create a human-centred design solution for clients and customer service consultants. Together they co-designed the CRM strategy, implementation roadmap and success measurement framework. They also developed a Proof of Concept for board endorsement.

State Trustees launched InTrust, a CRM-powered service delivery platform for clients subject to financial administration on the Salesforce Financial Services Cloud.

“InTrust is the embodiment of the client experience in a system that supports our team in delivering the best outcomes for our clients. It enables a holistic view of the client, supports collaboration, and empowers us to deliver on our clients’ expectations,” said Hannah Burton, Head of InTrust Development and Change Management.

Here’s how it works:

A client contacts their personal financial consultant for information or assistance; for example, a request to access funds. State Trustees consultants log into the client’s record via a portal built on Service Cloud, which integrates client data and provides a single view of their status and interaction history, including key milestones like the client's onboarding date, payments history, and recent services provided.

Multi-team processes are coordinated into a single, streamlined workflow that enables transparent tracking of decisions. MuleSoft integration functionality powers automation that supports consultants with the payment process, and in-app guidance and a self-service database eliminate the need for consultants to switch between systems to access information or procedures - helping to keep consultants focused on their customer.

Einstein Case Classification ensures client queries are routed to the appropriate team member and resolved efficiently. The new streamlined process has eliminated duplicates and reduced the number of individual email inboxes from 17 to one. Over time it is expected that client enquiries requiring manual intervention will progressively reduce using Einstein 1 AI capabilities. This directly addresses a historical challenge of case backlog and resolution times.

CRM Analytics is used to provide budgeting insights, including real-time affordability checks, and helps the team maintain service levels and transparency. Shield was layered on to help bring an additional layer of security to the platform.

“The platform enables us to be agile and forward-thinking, and to deliver client and employee experiences that show the whole community that State Trustees acts in their best interest,” Comer said.

The team has noticed a number of outcomes since the platform was implemented, driven by their commitment to using technology in a human-centric approach. This is helping the team to:

• Enhance their productivity and ability to engage with the client in the moment: “We’ve made it more efficient for our service centre consultants to take that phone call, understand the client's needs, respond to it, and then also say, ‘How else can I help you?’,” Burton said.
• Optimise their impact with data and actionable insights: “Maybe a client is calling us every week. Now we have insight into what circumstances in their life are causing this and what action we need to take to support them,” explained Burton.
• Deliver services that meet client expectations: “We're seeing reductions in substantiated complaints and issues raised, and we’re seeing improvements in our Client Experience Index as well,” Burton added.

The scalability of the platform provides the team with a foundation to introduce new concepts and integrate them into services as they evolve; for example, using AI to further streamline highly manual tasks such as report writing.

While translating strategic policy changes into practice can be difficult, Comer believes that transformations like the State Trustees’ demonstrate the art of the possible for other government agencies looking to do the same. “If you’re more effective in your policy implementation, you get better engagement with team members, better utilisation, and more satisfaction from the citizens who benefit.”

For Comer, seeing his team develop new skills and demonstrate leadership has been particularly rewarding. “We’re making a meaningful difference in people's lives. We've built a capability which is repeatable, and a platform that we can continue to evolve. I know that what we've created will be enduring,” he said.

• 749,000 client accounts/records migrated
• 24 client life events created
• 27,500 interactions per month
• 4,200 payments handled each week
• 360 new users trained and using the platform
• 12 workflows launched (and decommission of legacy solution for workflow management)
• 5 unique dashboards for service centre/consultant/team leaders created
• 45 knowledge articles created