Codified: Driving real transformation through conversation

Digital transformation isn’t just about adopting the latest technology; it’s about nurturing the right mindset to implement top-notch strategies. In South Africa, where diversity, infrastructure gaps, and customer skepticism all play a role in customer experience, that mindset needs to be bold, practical, and grounded in real-world insight.

Few companies understand this better than Codified, a boutique software development house based in Cape Town. Codified specializes in full-stack customer engagement solutions, particularly for the financial services and retail sectors.

Codified’s approach to improving customer journeys is rooted in adapting to how people prefer to interact today. After being in the call center space for over 20 years, Codified has noted a push to adopt technologies like chat commerce and other digital experiences that make the end-to-end journey smoother for the customer.

We spoke with founder and CEO Craig McLeod about how Codified is helping businesses rethink customer engagement – and how their work with Infobip supports that shift.

Innovation starts outside the business

One of Codified’s core philosophies is that real transformation often needs to start outside the traditional corporate structure. Why? Because large enterprises are built for stability – not speed.

Thanks to chat automation, this model has delivered real results like faster conversions, more valuable leads, and account openings. Codified helps clients prototype and refine solutions quickly, gather learnings, test impact, sometimes fail, pivot, and readjust, test again and only then scale internally.

It’s an approach that’s already reshaped customer service for clients like Homechoice, a leading South African homeware retailer that also provides financial services.

From voice to chat: A new era of customer connection

Homechoice built its business on voice-based customer engagement by phoning customers in their native language to guide them through product purchases. But with growing volumes and shifting customer expectations, the team knew it needed to modernize.

Codified stepped in to help them build a chat-driven model that didn’t replace agents – but supercharged them. With routine tasks now automated, agents have more time – and better tools – to focus on what matters. Every conversation is now backed by full customer context, making interactions faster, more relevant, and more human.

Engaging customers wherever – and whenever – they prefer

For Codified, designing effective customer journeys starts with a deep understanding of context especially in a market as complex as South Africa.

“With multiple languages, low smartphone penetration, and data sensitivity, you can’t just throw tech at people,” McLeod explains. “They don’t want another app. They don’t trust forms. But they’ll chat – if you do it right.”

That’s why Codified leans into channels like WhatsApp. It’s already part of people’s daily lives – making it the ideal space to build trust, drive engagement, and deliver real value without adding friction. This is especially important in South Africa, where many consumers remain skeptical of digital interactions. Choosing a familiar, non-invasive channel helps ease those concerns and encourages people to engage more confidently with a brand online.

A partner-first approach to scale

As a long-time partner of Infobip, Codified has built a strong feedback cycle into its work, sharing frontline user insights directly with the Infobip product team.

“Infobip doesn’t just provide the tech. They listen,” McLeod says. “We feed real-world feedback from multiple clients into the backlog, and when something shows up across accounts, Infobip is just as excited as we are to improve it.”

This responsiveness allows Codified to move quickly and continuously improve its strategies, from anti-fraud onboarding flows to scalable customer engagement journeys.

Looking ahead: AI, context, and mission control

With a sharp focus on customer outcomes, Codified is embracing AI with intention not hype. The team is currently exploring MCP (Model Context Protocol), a mission control layer that helps manage large language models and apply them intelligently to customer problems.

With Homechoice and others already trusting Codified to test and deploy AI-driven tools, the next frontier is smart orchestration: making automation more responsive, secure, and contextual at scale. Their partnership with Infobip plays a key role here providing the infrastructure, channels, and technical flexibility needed to embed these solutions seamlessly into real customer journeys.

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