Abstract: Described embodiments generally relate to a communications system comprising a first message broker configured to receive a request message from a messaging application executed by a customer computing device, the first message broker being a universal message broker adapted to receive messages from a plurality of different messaging applications; a message processing module configured to receive the request message from the first message broker and to interpret the request message to determine a sub-system of a vendor computing system to which the request message is directed; a first formatter configured to receive the request message from the message processing module, and to format the request message to match the format expected by the determined sub-system; and a second message broker configured to receive the formatted message from the first formatter and to send the formatted message to the determined sub-system.