WEX Inc. (WEX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
February 27, 2024
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystAll right. Good. I see the thumbs up. Wonderful. So up next, we're pleased to welcome WEX. Representing from the company, we have Melissa Smith, who's been the CEO since 2014. Wow, it's been a while now.
Melissa Smith
executiveA decade.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystYes. A decade.
Melissa Smith
executiveIt looks crazy.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystI remember like yesterday, and she's been with WEX since 1997. We also have Steve Elder, who heads up IR, and I feel like he's been there for some time, too, all right? Have you been there since 1997, too?
Steven Elder
executive'98.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analyst'98. Look at that. So 2 long-tenured executives from WEX.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystSo look, Melissa, maybe we start with the first question, which is WEX has been able to generate an impressive 14% revenue compounded annual growth rate over the last 10 years, which is near the high end of your range. And I remember I've asked you about this range for quite some time. So congratulations. You've done it. So as we look ahead to this 10% to 15% annual growth rate, is that still appropriate? Or do you feel like the mix has shifted that it could be even higher or lower or maybe you can opine them that?
Melissa Smith
executiveSure, sure. Well, we're really proud of the 14% growth, and part of what I'm proud about is, if you think about the last 10 years, you've had a pandemic, you've had a lot of different economic cycles that have occurred in the course of that period of time. And so the resiliency of the business to grow through, so many different environments is something that I would say that we're particularly proud of. When we look at the opportunities that we have at hand, we feel really confident in that 10% to 15% long-term growth profile for the company. And when we think about how we're gearing the company and the investments make the choices we're making it's with that in mind.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystOkay. And then you have these 3 segments, Mobility, Corporate Payments and Benefits, which one are you most bullish on in 2024? I feel like I'm asking you to pick your favorite child. And I mean, I guess, like as we think about it from a long-term perspective, which one has the most ability to sort of get bigger, faster?
Melissa Smith
executiveOkay. So I'm going to pick my favorite.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystOkay. I understand that one. As I read the question, I was what am I doing?
Melissa Smith
executiveSo when -- like if I started kind of the top of the house, the 10% to 15%, we get 2% to 3% in our long-term framework, which comes from M&A, 1% to 2% from new products, 3% to 5% net new customer growth and 4% to 5% from our existing customer base. So that's our -- like the top of the house, that's our long-term framework is how we're going to grow. What I like about the segments, I like different things about each of them. I'm going to start with Benefits. Like -- what I like about Benefits, I think over that 10-year cycle, it's an incredibly resilient part of the business model. It is really what we're focused on is continue to grow accounts. And on top of that, we've become a custodian over the last several years, and that allows us to monetize the balances that people have on the accounts, health care costs keep going up, and then we have the ability to cross-sell some of our new product offerings into that [indiscernible] capability or benefit administration or compliance. And so I'd like to think at the resiliency of that part of the business. I'd like when you go into our Mobility segment, what I'm excited about, it's such a wonderful launching pad for us. We have this great engine, our sales engine that we have there that it's reliably bringing on new customers. And what we are looking at is how can we actually continue to add more capability to that sales force. Well, I'm sure you're going to ask me about Payzer at some point in time, that's an ability to increase the TAM that we have in that space. And so what I like about that model is the predictability that you have with the underlying sales and the ability to actually add more into the 600,000 customers we have into that -- the part of the business. And then with our Corporate Payments business we have had really explosive growth. We have almost 50% spend volume growth in our travel customer versus last year. And what we've showed with that model is that we have this great scalable model. So as you bring business into our embedded payments products, it's really high incremental drop-through rate. And so as we continue to add and build on that, is another wonderful growth engine that we've been supplementing with our direct sales force that we've built. So I like different things about each of the different segments we have but what I like when you combine it all is kind of the predictability of our ability to deliver.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystAnd I guess like the key has been, though, over time to diversify away from Mobility into these other areas, too, right? The mixes should evolve towards these other ex-Mobility segments. Would you agree with that or naturally?
Melissa Smith
executiveYes. I mean, I think it's happening somewhat naturally except the fact that our Mobility customer base continues to grow, too. When we first started, it was really -- the thing that we're looking at is 2 things. One was, we had this exposure embedded in our business model to fuel prices. When we first went public, it was 80% of our revenue was exposed to fuel prices. And so we were really trying to reduce that exposure. But actually, I would say more importantly, we're looking at what are our skills and capabilities as a company? And what can we do? And that enabled us just to think bigger and our real core skill has been around removing complexity from our customers and our mission statement is to simplify the business and running a business. And so we're trying to find places that create [ trail ] within our existing customer base and remove that so they can actually do what they do best. And I think when we broaden our perspective of what we're capable of doing, it has just added to more TAM for us. And the downstream effect is now only 20%-ish, a little over 20% of our revenues exposed to fuel prices. So there's been a benefit.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystThat's great. I love that. It's been the source of quite a bit of volatility in the past, yes?
Melissa Smith
executiveYes.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystSo yes, I guess, look, the stock has worked as we were discussing before. But you're still trading at 11x forward PE. Historically, it's been in the mid- to high teens. I'm just curious sort of what you think is causing this discounted valuation as you talk to investors? What do you think they're missing?
Melissa Smith
executiveYes. It's a good question, yes. So stock has performed well, and we still feel it's undervalued, yes. The place that I would say that we've heard the most is around this concern with our Mobility customers. It's this kind of overhang of EV. Now where we sit into different position probably because we have more information on this migration. We believe it's a long-term migration, okay? And certainly, that's what's been playing out in the marketplace. And the products that we've evolved into in the marketplace are products that are really focusing around the added complexity of someone who now has an EV vehicle and an ICE powered vehicle. They suddenly are looking for a solution that integrates all that data together. They want 1 payment mechanism. And the replaces that you can charge are you can charge at a public location, you can charge at home or you can charge at a depot location, so your own private location. And so we've rolled out products that all people charge at public locations, we have networks, similar to the operate, I would say, in the same way that our network studio in ICE vehicles. We have the ability to people to do at home reimbursement and this year we'll have depot capability. And I think one of the underlying concerns was around what's the economic is going to be because suddenly, we're earning a lot less money on interchange in this new world, which is true but we're actually earning a lot more on subscription fees because we're providing additional services. And so we actually feel really good about the economic equation that this creates and the opportunity for us to grow into this marketplace over time, and we think this will take a long period of time. So I'd say EV is probably the biggest place. And in the meantime, we've accelerated our share buyback because we do see our stock is a good investment. And so we've been investing in that as well.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystThat's great. I'm going to talk about EV later, so I'll save it because we'll talk about each of the segments and maybe we start with Mobility first. So same-store sales have been a little bit weak in 2023, low single-digit decline in North America and over the road. Any early indications so far in 2024?
Melissa Smith
executiveYes. So far in 2024, let's say, it looks pretty similar. So -- and we guided we assumed that we would be in a low growth environment, we said 1.5% GDP growth in the course of 2024. So we assumed that we would be in a kind of stable environment, which is what we've seen so far this year.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystOkay. And well, I guess, -- is there any acceleration expected over the course of the year in Mobility? I mean it seems like there might be, right? So do you feel like that is a possibility given this backdrop that you're talking about?
Melissa Smith
executiveYes. So in 2023 was a tough year in Mobility. I think we had a freight recession. And we intentionally changed our credit practices. So the downstream effect of that was that we saw more attrition than we normally do across our portfolio in kind of the middle part of last year. And so I actually think we think of this last year has been more of a kind of a transition period and will be in the first quarter or 2 of those credit policy changes, because the downstream effect of that we had a little bit more attrition, 1% to 2% impact of that. We, more importantly, changed the mix of customers that we're coming in. They are less likely to be late, which is great. We can see like the benefit of that from a credit loss perspective but there's an impact on our late fees that we're receiving and that had a 3% impact on the segment. And so it was a pretty meaningful impact. We think, again, like it's the right thing to do from an overall profitability perspective. But a lot of what we think is going to play out in the course of this year is more lapsing of those issues rather than something wholesale that's going to change. Our sales have been great, and we anticipate that it will continue to be great in 2024 based on everything that we've seen and we've got like a good read, obviously, on the sales tail that's coming into the year. So our migration for what happened in '23 to what we're anticipating in '24 has more to do with lapsing and getting back into a normal environment, and less to do it. We're not assuming that there's any big pickup from an economic perspective.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystOkay. And before I get into like a Payzer question, just in terms of where we are and the ability to take share like in the U.S. or even -- I mean, you guys are pretty much gotten your fair share here in [indiscernible]
Melissa Smith
executiveI think, we will continue to do.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystBut as we look internationally, especially in Europe where are we with that journey?
Melissa Smith
executiveSo, to your point, in the U.S., we continue to win. We feel good about our ability to continue to win. In Europe, we only have about 1% market share. And so we continue to bring on new business. And so it's kind of like pro rata beginning to win in that marketplace. And you just wouldn't see it coming through them because it's a smaller part of the numbers.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystRight, right. I mean it's still an evolution there? Not revolution.
Melissa Smith
executiveYes. Look, the products in Europe are a little bit different. Both in Australia and the United States, we're operating off a closed-loop network that gives a lot of data advantages. In the European marketplace, the oil companies have been more proprietary about sharing data. And so you end up with more individual card programs as opposed to like a universal card program.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystGot it. So obviously, the Payzer acquisition was a really good one. Maybe you could just talk through the merits of the transaction and what it gives you that you didn't have before and the opportunity ahead?
Melissa Smith
executiveYes. So one of the things we were looking at is where we could, again, kind of broaden the product set that we have. And we're looking actually started a top of the house where we want to do that. And we started really focusing on this part of the marketplace because we had such an overlap within our existing customer as of 150,000 field service management customers that sit within our Mobility customer base. What we liked about Payzer, it was the -- we felt like it was an ability to broaden what we do with that customer segment, and they're earning more revenue per account than we are. So ability to do more, ability to add on to our existing customer base. And so I would say this is a test for us. What we'd like about Payzer specifically was that the product enables a connection into the OEM. So -- and kind of just [indiscernible].
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystMay be explain what Payzer does?
Melissa Smith
executiveSo Payzer is a workforce flow-through tool for field service management companies. And there's 2 type of customers that they're serving the office manager and then the person who's in the field. And for the office manager, what you're able to do is see and schedule activities. So you can see payment activity, you can see all the different activity that's happening in the field and have scheduling capability. If you're in the field, if you're a driver, you're on the way there, you were actually getting information about where to go, what to expect when you get there. When you actually on location, it enables you to order products directly through the OEM on location, you can bill and collect immediately so that it removes the issue of payment. You can schedule the next meeting, you can actually create an invoice around different options for further services. And so it's everything that's digitized from their workflow experience. And -- so for our customers because we have such a heavy concentration across this category. What we're interested in is can we actually cross-sell that capability into our existing customer base. We're doing it in 2 different ways, and I would think of this as like an A/B test where we took some of our customers move them to Payzer. We're letting them do a test and learn to see if they can -- how active and how accurate they are, and they're cross-selling, and then flipping it within our marketing group, we're actually doing some active marketing campaigns to the customer set. So -- but I like about where we are right now, which is early -- too early to tell you but we've got many different ways that we're activating this cross-selling. It was the idea that we think that this could add long term to their growth profile of our Mobility segment.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystAnd like can it bridge into Corporate Payments at some point?
Melissa Smith
executiveWell, there is a connection point so that paying get paid. [indiscernible] yes, for sure.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystAnd so is that a Corporate Payments revenue stream? Or is it a Mobility revenue stream?
Melissa Smith
executiveSo -- great question. So right now, the SaaS-related phase are in Mobility.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystRight, right, right. Well, I mean -- but ultimately, there's some interrelation between the 2 segments and sort of what Payzer brings to. I mean it's a vertical software for that specific niche industry.
Melissa Smith
executiveYes.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystGot it. That's great. Shifting gears to EV. You talked a little bit about it and sort of the risks associated with it but you've mentioned it could be a big opportunity, $1.5 billion to $2 billion in TAM. We have more data points now, right? Like we've been talking about this for, I feel like several years now. We have a lot more data points. I'm just curious, based on all those data points. How much confidence do you have in this TAM? And what gives you the confidence with these data points that we have?
Melissa Smith
executiveSo when we actually put that out at Investor Day, it was like a hypothetical you had done a bunch of work. So we were estimating what it could be. And 2 years later, we're actually living it right now. So...
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystAnd you stand by it.
Melissa Smith
executiveYes. Yes. I would say, if anything, you're more bullish about it than we were. And that's because each of these individual use cases that we're solving for our customers were charging a subscription fee associated with that. And we've got in the marketplace, just I would say, kind of the bare-bones of what the product will ultimately look like, like we're already in the range that we had to anticipated. So we're already charging about as much as what we get with an ICE vehicle on average. And we see so many more use cases that we can stack on top of this. So yes, we actually believe that this is a whole new way of auto monetizing. It doesn't have the exposure to fuel prices, which is an added benefit, but I think more importantly, what we're seeing with our customers is that their complexity is just increasing. And what they're looking for us to is to remove that for them and they're willing to pay for that.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystAnd everyone is -- and you sort of alluded to this before, everyone is worried about the distribution changing and then other intermediaries getting involved in the different distribution channels and you've seen like OEMs try to get involved, et cetera, payment processors get involved. You don't see the end customer using anyone else, they kind of still are using you guys.
Melissa Smith
executiveWell, yes. And let me explain that. I think that part of what people undervalue is there is this migration where you're going to have an ICE vehicle and an EV vehicle. And in that period of time, people want to have information on both packaged together. That's like a very [indiscernible]. So I want to have all my data together so I can understand the total cost of my fleet. And as we go through this transition, which is going to last a long period of time. The ability to actually have that information together is a really big movement for us. And that gives us that path where we can actually draw people along. And then if you look -- think of what happens in a commercial fleet, it's typically multiple vehicle types. It's not like I'm just driving forward and like typically driving many different types of vehicles. And so if you're an OEM, you have a solution that might work for a consumer but it's a lot harder for that to work for a business. And so I think for a lot of reasons, we're just in a really good spot. And if we did nothing, that would be a problem. I think it's really important we have the products in the marketplace. Even if we're early in the marketplace but having the ability to -- what we're finding that we actually had to be much more consultative than we expected as people are being told -- you have -- you now are supposed to have an EV fleet, and that person is saying, I have no idea what supposed to do. And so that puts us in kind of this unique position of helping walking them through that.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystThat's really interesting. And I mean, I guess, like -- and that's -- and you still feel like the margins on that or the take rate on that would be equal or higher than interchange?
Melissa Smith
executiveYes, most strongly about that now than I did 2 years ago, yes.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystOkay. Great. Let's shift gears, Corporate Payments. It's obviously -- you mentioned it, it's grown quite nicely over the past couple of years. The outlook is a little bit more tempered in terms of the growth rate. So maybe you can just talk about that. I think it's grown 20% plus in the past 2 years. You're talking about single-digit growth, maybe you could talk about sort of what's embedded in that?
Melissa Smith
executiveYes. So in our guidance that we assumed and as you enter 2024 that we're going to enter back into a more normal funnel marketplace. And so again, we've had almost 50% growth in our travel customer spend volume last year. And in a normal year, that's typically more like a high single-digit grower. So our underlying assumption in the guide was that you would see that return to normal during the course of the year. And then at the same time, in our Corporate Payments outside of travel, we have built a direct sales force and we're seeing with them actually great return for [ that. ] It's actually coming through very much like the business case. And so we're assuming that, that will continue throughout the course of this year. So we'll have success with that sales force and so we'll have a higher growth in the nontravel part than we did in 2023.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystAnd I mean this travel assumption that you're making? I mean, that's what you're seeing play out year-to-date that's sort of slowing?
Melissa Smith
executiveIt has definitely slowed so far this year, and we assumed it would kind of trickle in the course of the year. So it hasn't slowed all the way to a normal level but it has slowed.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystOkay. Got it. You mentioned on your earnings call travel partners use multiple providers. And I know there's been a whole lot of stuff with the take rate and stuff over time as it relates to that. But maybe you could just talk about the interplay there. How much of their volume actually flow through you versus what they might do themselves versus what they might do with other parties and how successful have you been to take your -- more share from them?
Melissa Smith
executiveSo not just travel companies but I would say any of the large -- our largest customers that are using our embedded payments products are typically dual sourcing and they do that for 2 reasons. They do it redundancies. So like because if we're down, they're down, which is why reliability is so important to the customers. And then they do it to create some competitive pressure. And those are really the 2 [indiscernible] reasons, right? And if you look across our business, we feel like in '23, we actually were on the upside of that, and of taking from those people that are dual source never going to get them like all the way back up, save dual score, and I'm going to go back to 100%. But we feel good about the fact that we're continuing to chip away at other people that are providing similar type of services. And we're doing that -- we feel really good about the products we have in the marketplace.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystAnd when you're competing against other parties, what's really the defining -- like what's the difference outside of price? Because I know price is an important component of it.
Melissa Smith
executiveSo in our embedded payments products, the underlying technology, so reliability the actual system itself is really important because you are integrated into their system. And if yours goes down like I said, they're down, right? So the reliability of that and the integration across multiple product capabilities, so the ability to issue to use our card management systems, having that all put together in one technology stack is the second component of how we compete, so kind of the breadth of the offering. And the reliability that we have in the space or things that -- where people will say, actually, I would rather do business with you because I have more confidence in your ability to service my [ needs ] is something that's willing to grow to what we do. And now I actually think like in order of priority, that's more important than price. The price matters. And if you look across all of pretty much everything that we do the product itself is really important, and that's how we define ourselves. But the -- we're typically charging a premium for the fact that the products are better.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystAnd when a partner uses or does it themselves, that's just a price thing than the simplicity thing?
Melissa Smith
executiveThere aren't many that are doing it themselves.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystNo. Like even on the OTA side.
Melissa Smith
executiveLike you're talking about -- on the OTA side, it's even more complicated because you're talking about a global product set. You have to have global issuing capability. So you get into licensing and part of why if you look at where we have had the big notes on the OTA side has been on the cross-border because you have a compliance structure that spans the world that enables people to move money in different currencies and at significant volume. And that's actually really hard to took a look at it.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystAnd I guess, like some of the newer payment processors have talked about getting into this business? Have you seen them sort of trying?
Melissa Smith
executiveYes. That's right. I think with that, it really is hard like where we have seen over the years more competitive pressures, it's like an individual country, where someone is issuing [indiscernible] someone individual country. And so that's typically where we see more pressure but now it's kind of the more -- the bigger broader products that we have.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystAnd have you talked about how much your is like cross-border versus domestic?
Melissa Smith
executiveNo.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystOkay. Maybe we shift gears to Benefits. The 10% to 15% revenue growth for Benefits was also a little bit lower than the guide, 15% to 20%. How much of this is due to lower interest rates versus other factors?
Melissa Smith
executiveYes. So last year, we grew over 30%, like in...
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystSo, a tougher comp.
Melissa Smith
executiveEven though, I won't use [indiscernible] that's an excuse but about half of that, that was interest rate. And so we still feel good about the year last year, even ex interest rates. But we're assuming, as you go into this year, we have about $1 billion of floating, right? Yes, that's sitting out there. So our assumption when we provided guidance is that we were using the forward curve, which assumes some reduction in rates, however, the world has changed. But 3 weeks ago, that was the forward [indiscernible]. And so that was assumed in our guidance. And just kind of take a step back, if what I said because nervousness, that's a positive on the benefit side, we're generally interest rate neutral. So as we're a borrower to [indiscernible] of our business and then get our corporate debt structure. So you have some moving parts with a curve changing, it shouldn't have a huge material effect. So the other thing I had talked about on the call was the fact that we had signed a customer. They were using a specialty product that we had that was a product that we hadn't really heavily invested in or really invested in. And -- so we have 1 customer that's going to a provider that, that's what they do, especially services. And so that had about a 2% negative impact from a revenue perspective and our guidance for this segment, and Benefits. It will be disproportionately higher, though, in terms of accounts. So just like -- that's why we talked about it as [indiscernible] to be surprised with the account [indiscernible] number that we had in the first quarter. But otherwise, if you look across, we feel good about excluding that, what our account growth looks like, comparatively from a market perspective. And we also feel like we're winning our fair share in that space.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystAnd like the employment numbers, while still very strong on the margins have been kind of gradually going up a little bit. I mean, do you feel like that's having any impact here?
Melissa Smith
executiveWe saw actually more non-decisions as we went through this sales cycle that we had I think going into '23 at a really strong sales cycle. Going into '24, we had more people who just worked. They didn't make a change. And so I don't know if that was because of more uncertainty that was happening, we'd certainly see that in previous cycles as well.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystOkay. Competitive dynamics in Benefits, it seems like you guys have branched out to do more inside of Benefits like, who's your competitor at this point? And do you feel like the competitive intensity is getting greater or lower? I'm just curious sort of where we are?
Melissa Smith
executiveYes. It's kind of the branches. So we started with our pure account capability then we added COBRA, then we added benefits administration, compliance capabilities. So we've broadened what we do for that customer set. In doing that, like when I think of our biggest competitors are still HealthEquity on the direct side and Allegis on the partner side. And so from a competitive perspective, I would say it really hasn't been much of a shift. And our -- when we think about how we win, we win because the technology is geared towards doing multiple types of accounts. So like WEX is an employer. We offer it to our employees a traditional benefits program where you have an account associated with that and you have a high deductible plan, we have an HSA account of associated with that. And so being able to offer the underlying technology stack where you can have multiple tax deferred account types put together is a way that we win in the marketplace, also win on the underlying product capability as soon as we have as well.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystAnd do you feel like your partners are as committed like you have a lot of partners that are big banks and banks.
Melissa Smith
executiveYes.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystThey're pretty committed to this business and not like trying to sell it to one of these companies.
Melissa Smith
executiveNo, I think that -- I mean consolidation of [ process ], everything you do, really is something that can have an impact. But I'd say, generally, there were more interest rather than the last. And particularly in the larger companies because they -- and they don't want it in for a different reason. They your bank, you like the deposits, if you're a health insurance company like the dual sale capability, if you're a third-party administrator, like everyone is coming at it for a different reason. And now you've got brokerage firms, too that are like really interested in this is a whole different way to help people [indiscernible]. So I mean I think if anything, over the years, you've gotten more interest in participating. And we do business with many different types of companies. And if you look across, we have more than 50% of the Fortune 1000 that are using our unrolling technology in 1 way shape either directly or through a partner.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystRight. Maybe we shift gears and talk about the margin. The margin, you've been able to maintain your overall adjusted margin 40% despite fuel pressures. How should we think about the long-term operating margin profile post the savings that you're talking about the $100 million?
Melissa Smith
executiveMargins are tricky because prices [indiscernible] , right?
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystAssuming [indiscernible] price.
Melissa Smith
executiveAssuming [indiscernible] price, you can see in our guide, we assume margin expansion and that's really coming from -- we talked a lot about we have been focused around places that we can create efficiency within the company. So they kind of like taking that [indiscernible] business running business and applying it internally to WEX, and we feel really good about the cost savings, scalability that we've leveraged and I think we're only just starting, frankly. If I look at where we've had, we had a lot of success in our risk functions with embedded AI tools and continue to evolve those tools, which is helping us make more informed decisions in the models they're learning, so they're getting better and better. And on the -- we're taking that same capability, moving it into our marketing capabilities. So that we're getting more and more sophisticated about the lead generation that's feeding that digital engine, and we've got a lot of work that's happening across our operations groups, sales and marketing. And like I think that we're in this wonderful spot right now, and we've migrated to the cloud. And we spent for the last several years, really focused around our underlying data. And so now we're starting to leverage that. We had, what, 80 active AI projects across the company in 2023. And I'm like a big believer in what that's going to do. And you're starting to see the benefit of that rippling through, that and other...
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystCan you elaborate on AI as you just said it, please?
Melissa Smith
executiveYes, I mean, there are simple things like if you take our call center, we're -- the tools allow someone who sits in our call center to instead of clicking through a bunch of screens, actually taking customer information and actually give them the call center rep the kind of direction on where the customer is going. So it's much more intuitive and more consistent. It can wrap up the call, so that the time when someone would spend actually taking notes, it's actually happening like in the background. And then it gives you a data source to mind so that you can actually start to look at what's happening from a customer perspective? And how can I eliminate those types of calls that are happening in their call center. This is on the way to eventually where you're using even more automation that's happening to a customer. We talked on the call about the fact that your explanation of Benefits, you get -- they all look different. They all have the same information on it. So we're using AI tools to actually read that so that you can reimburse people but instead of having people sitting there sorting through it, if there's a tool that's sitting in the background. So I just feel like it is a way of creating a much better customer experience at a lower cost. And we are incredibly well positioned to really reap the benefits of that and to productize this too. So like everything I talked about was just in our internal cost structure. I think there's a lot that we will do with our customers, too.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystIt seems like you can get some good operating leverage off of it.
Melissa Smith
executiveYes. And we've embedded -- I believe, if you look at our guide, just the work that we've already got behind us and what we're planning on 2024, we've embedded in our guide, but we, again, think this is a great flywheel.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystRight. So my final question is on sort of the leverage ratio. I mean you're at the low end of your long-term range now, 2.5, 3.5, took a little bit, but you're there now. Maybe you could just talk about sort of uses of capital, right? I mean, historically, you've done tuck-in type of deals. You've done more transformative type of deals or adding stools. So maybe just talk about what you might use that capital to do?
Melissa Smith
executiveYes. So we start with how much do we want to have internal -- for our internal growth, which is an important part of that. And then we've got 2% to 3% embedded in our long-term guidance for M&A. And when we are looking at M&A, we've historically looked at 3 categories: product extensions, scale plays, and geographic extension. We say we're actively still going across those 3 categories. But in the last couple of years, instead of deploying for scale, we've largely used that money for share buyback. And when we're doing a comparison of where should we spend the money that's -- we're doing that evaluation is that something and Payzer is a great example of that. Like if you look at Payzer, share buyback would be a better short-term use of capital. If you look at the ROI, Payzer has a better ROI over a longer period of time. And so those are conversations that we're having on a very regular basis of, okay, every once in a while, we're going to do something we think is more growthy, which you think is important to hit the 2% to 3%, and is a really good return to shareholders, but it may take some time. And then historically, we would have done scale acquisitions also. And I would say in the moment that we're in, where we feel undervalued where we are more likely to put that to share buyback.
Sanjay Sakhrani
analystThat's great. All right. So I've gotten through my question, so I figured out. In the last 2 minutes open up to the audience if they've got questions. Any questions from the audience? No. All right, then we'll end it right there. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.
Melissa Smith
executiveThank you.
Steven Elder
executiveThank you.
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