Credit union call centers and other lines of support for members have been under increased stress since the start of COVID-19 in 2020. But industry leaders and experts hold that artificial intelligence could be the answer.
For the institutions that prioritized digital solutions against the
Some believe that despite workplaces bringing employees back to work in person, these tools are still valuable for reducing the pressure on frontline staff — and have begun making significant investments into the market through new organizations.
"As the technology around artificial intelligence and chatbots has improved, we've seen an increase in demand for conversational AI as a way to streamline standard inquiries," said Dan Michaeli, co-founder and CEO of Glia, a financial technology firm based in New York.
"A large percentage of contact center requests are routine transactions, and AI presents a great opportunity for financial institutions to allow chatbots to handle these inquiries while freeing up their live agents to focus their time and energy on high-value, complex inquiries from their members," he added.
Glia specializes in digitized customer service offerings such as artificial intelligence chatbots, also known as conversational AI, in-browser guidance tools and more and is hoping to capitalize on this trend with its recently formed credit union service organization.
Officially launched in December, the CUSO enlists the financial backing and expertise of several credit union clients from various asset classes. That has created an opportunity for those institutions to work more closely with Glia's upper management while establishing an advisory committee of industry professionals that the firm can draw from for added insight.
Institutions that invested in the new organization include the $6.4 billion-asset Bank-Fund Staff Federal Credit Union in Washington D.C., the $16.4 billion-asset First Technology Federal Credit Union in San Jose, California, the $1.1 billion-asset Harvard University Employees Credit Union in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the $795 million-asset SkyOne Federal Credit Union in Hawthorne, California, and the $1.8 billion-asset Unitus Community Credit Union in Portland, Oregon.
Glia found through feedback from clients that there was a need for a unified platform capable of handling various engagement with members and supporting possibilities for automation through AI, Michaeli said.
"The pandemic has accelerated a trend we were already seeing — the move to digital customer service as a means to meet members where they are and deliver seamless experiences that accelerate business and enhance the member experience," said Michaeli, who added that social distancing prompted many credit unions to consider more digital member service options.
For many institutions still utilizing a hybrid work environment, the adoption of
A
Experts agree that digitizing the customer experience can help reduce the stresses on physical employees and better allocate resources for more complex requests, with many credit unions investing in technological upgrades after the effects of the pandemic.
Ryan Brogan, senior director for Cornerstone Advisors, highlighted how traditional call centers are often inundated with simple requests that could otherwise be addressed by a conversational AI — thereby freeing the staffers for more intricate cases.
"In our work, we see contact centers are still contending with a pretty substantial number of interactions that are relatively basic in nature," prior to the pandemic, where credit unions were reluctant to adopt various machine-learning tools for member self-service, they are now realizing that a reliance on manually handling all interactions "is very expensive to scale," Brogan said.
Eli Vazquez, CEO of Bank-Fund Staff Federal Credit Union and a client of Glia, said that his institution is still looking for ways to better use technology to serve members. He hopes that being part of Glia's CUSO will help with that by providing opportunities for direct feedback to tailor offerings the credit union uses such as chatbots and in-browser guidance tools for support staff.
"Through the CUSO, we are joining a community of credit unions that share a similar mission — to leverage leading technologies that allow us to best serve our members and carve out a strong competitive advantage," Vasquez said. "Those involved are dedicated to innovation and continually evolving to foster lasting member loyalty and growth."
