The Global Challenge
SumUp was founded in 2012 with one goal: create a world where small business owners can be successful doing what they love. Today, more than 4 million businesses globally rely on SumUp for card readers and payment processing services .
To support its customers, SumUp operates contact centres in more than 30 countries, employing 2,000 agents who field over 280,000 calls monthly .
Scaling and automating global customer support in multiple languages presented significant challenges.
The Solution: Five9 Intelligent Virtual Agent
SumUp turned to Five9 Intelligent Virtual Agent (IVA) and Five9 Workflow Automation (WFA) to achieve their goals. The single, cloud-based, no-code development platform enables contact centres to build, deploy, and manage IVAs across the channels their customers prefer .
Predefined templates or drag-and-drop visual workflows define tasks, with 25 authentically human-sounding voices available in multiple languages.
The Results
The impact was dramatic:
- 50% reduction in callers who opted to speak to a human agent
- 10% improvement in self-service containment in the first year
- 23% cost savings compared to full-time employees within the first month of proof-of-concept
- 97% accuracy rate in intent recognition after continuous improvement
“We added the Five9 IVA and saw the number of merchants who opted to speak to a human agent drop by 50%. This is a huge decrease for us and shows us that our IVA is truly serving customers,” said Bruno De Melo Fransoni, SumUp Global Contact Centre Chapter Leader .
The Continuous Improvement Process
SumUp doesn’t just deploy AI and forget it. They maintain a rigorous optimization cycle:
- Regular intent monitoring and analysis
- Two-month confirmation periods for new intents
- Customer feedback collection on understanding
- Continuous accuracy improvements from 85% to 97%
Beyond Call Handling
SumUp has expanded automation to multiple areas:
- FAQ automation
- Intelligent call routing
- Cross-channel forwarding
- SMS and WhatsApp instructions
- Unified dashboards for IVR and IVA comparison
What This Means for Your Business
SumUp’s success demonstrates that AI voice agents aren’t just for small businesses—enterprises with complex, multilingual operations achieve dramatic improvements in efficiency and customer satisfaction.
The 50% containment rate means half the calls that previously required human agents now resolve automatically, freeing 1,000 agents for higher-value work.
Read my full Answrr review to see how AI transforms customer service operations.
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