Access Mercantile is a key partner for Australia’s top organisations, delivering collection and recovery solutions. As a market leader going through rapid growth, they have been investing heavily across technology and process improvement, continuing to set themselves apart from their competitors.
Access approached FLO with a bold ambition: to further reduce manual work, scale faster, and build smart automation across their entire Salesforce ecosystem.
Over several phases, we helped redesign and optimise their Salesforce platform to run smarter – improved automation across all critical processes, from case creation, client establishment, agent tasking, field operations, regulated correspondence, through to billing. The results speak for themselves, their clients are enjoying faster delivery, better service, and real-time updates across services performed. Achievements in ‘straight-through’ processing have removed substantial manual work, improving overall cost and time to serve.
Access Mercantile is a distinguished leader in debt and recovery solutions and has been operating for 35+ years as a key partner with some of Australia’s blue-chip, well-known organisations, delivering services across Australia and New Zealand. Industry expertise covers utilities, banking, telecommunications, finance, government, health, automotive, legal and logistics across consumer, commercial and enterprise portfolios.
CHALLENGE
The debt recovery industry is highly regulated and demands stringent compliance and controls. As demand continues to grow, Access Mercantile wanted to ensure that their processes could keep pace, eliminating bottlenecks and reducing risks, whether at the initial client onboarding stage or simply processing thousands of daily transactions. Everything must be done ‘right first time’, in full alignment with client, legal, regulatory and compliance expectations.
At Access Mercantile, understanding the unique circumstances of each customer is core to their approach. Collection activities are designed to achieve personalised results for every debtor. Open communication and empathetic interactions are key, treating debtors with respect and understanding is essential to effective debt collection and recovery. Their integrated collections model, Access Customer Engagement (ACE), ensures a balanced approach that focuses on creating a positive customer experience while optimising recovery rates.
To continue setting themselves apart from the competition and execute their integrated model in a seamless way, they had to fundamentally retire their legacy platforms and work with FLO on how they could effectively leverage the power of Salesforce capability, customised in a unique way.
OBJECTIVES
Access Mercantile came to FLO with a clear mission: build a leaner, automation-first Salesforce environment—customised to set them apart from the competition and make the complex simple for both clients and internal teams.
Their strategic goals included:
Reducing manual effort & failure demand across teams to speed up delivery, remove complexity and waste and better mitigate compliance risk
Automating case flows, client communications, and tasking end-to-end lifecycle improvement – ‘book to bill approach’ – automate and simplify each critical process to provide seamless movement and transactions between process steps
Reducing client onboarding time from days to hours
Building a customised & scalable Salesforce platform enabled for future growth and agile enough to embed future business changes with ease
Fully compliant and secure, no matter how fast the business grows, always ensuring that data security is of the highest level
SOLUTION
Together with Access Mercantile, we customised Salesforce from the ground up—not just to support their business, but to actively and dynamically run it. Every part of the platform was reconsidered with automation and simplicity front of mind, reducing complexity, saving time, unlocking scale and most importantly, improving the customer experience.
Referral & Case Automation
We have set in place a more streamlined intake system to triage collection cases. Manual case handling became the exception, not the rule.
Agent Workflow Redesign
Field agents got mobile-optimised task flows, replacing manual and paper-based task allocation with dynamic logic based on region, case type, and availability. Assignments now happen automatically and instantly in a digitally secure way—no more paper!
Automated Communication
We introduced new templates and triggers to handle client and debtor correspondence via email and digital notices. The system knows what to send, when to send it, and how to log it. All of which is fully auditable,compliant and reduces the risk of human error.
Faster Client Onboarding
New clients now get spun up with reusable configuration templates and workflow modules. What used to take several days can now be done in a matter of hours.
Compliance Focus
We created compliance and process flows. Regulated communications are now faster, more traceable, and far less error-prone, cutting documentation cost and delivery times substantially.
“The real win here was building automation that does not just tick boxes—it helps people do their job better, making their time at work more enjoyable and easier. We knew we had to keep everything audit-ready, but also intuitive for the team using it every day.”
Anthony Le, Salesforce Developer, FLO
OUTCOMES
The transformation was not just technical—it was operational. Access Mercantile now runs a leaner, more responsive Salesforce environment that supports their business at scale, not just in theory.
Here is what changed:
↓ Manual Case Handling
Core processes are now automated end-to-end—from referral intake to agent assignment. Operational teams spend less time clicking and more time solving.
↑ Client Onboarding Speed
Reusable templates and simplified workflows cut onboarding time dramatically, helping Access Mercantile launch new partnerships faster.
↑ Automated Correspondence
Debtor and client communications now run on smart triggers, ensuring the right message is sent at the right time, without human intervention.
↑ Field Efficiency
Mobile-first task scheduling gives field agents what they need, when they need it, without admin overhead. No more manual coordination or delays, and no more paper.
↓ Enhanced Compliance
With templated flows and auditable logs, regulated processes now run faster and cleaner, reducing risk while improving documentation accuracy.
“This transformation has fundamentally changed how we operate. What used to take days now takes minutes, and our teams can dedicate more time to what really matters – our clients! FLO’s understanding of our regulatory environment and operational needs was spot on.”
David Bisiach, CITO, Access Mercantile
CONCLUSION
Access Mercantile now runs on a Salesforce platform that’s faster, leaner, and more intelligent—purpose-built to set them apart from their competitors and make the sometimes complex simple. By rethinking how Salesforce could better serve their clients and their people, we partnered with them to build a high-performing automation engine that delivers speed, transparency, and control across every part of their operation.
The transformation did not just reduce friction. It unlocked potential for continued growth and prosperity.
Let’s talk about what intelligent automation could mean for your business—from faster onboarding and fulfilment to full-service orchestration that’s built to scale.
