Before Ent Credit Union started using AI-powered customer relationship software from Creatio five years ago, the Colorado-based institution, which has $10 billion in assets, had issues managing client information and back-office workflows using Excel worksheets and its core banking platform. Now, it has a unified system that it has customized to make internal communications easier and track customer activity.
Boston-based Creatio's CRM software allows businesses to build a codeless management system that can organize customer information, automate system processes and create custom solutions for management and communication. While Creatio works in several industries, credit unions and banks use its AI-assisted systems to manage payments, loan management systems and improve user interfaces for employees. In June, Creatio received a $200 million investment led by Sapphire Ventures — a California-based venture capital firm — to expand its research and development strategy and global partnerships.
"We created this end-to-end automation of all customer centric workflows with more than just integrations in core banking, with loan management systems (and) with credit bureaus," Andie Dovgan, chief growth officer of Creatio, said. "We are trying to educate the market that we're talking about business critical applications."
Creatio has worked with several financial institutions, including Budapest-based OTP bank and Guatemalan-based Banco G&T Continental. In 2019, the company partnered with Ent to unify its workflow and back-office processes and track customer activity, said Matt Pincoski, director of engagement systems at Ent.
Keeping track of members
"One of the biggest value-adds is just having a system that tracks a lot of information about our members," Pincoski said. "You can have a system that's intuitive and easy to use and access the information that you need."
Several software makers, like Salesforce and Microsoft, have created automated CRM systems in recent years as companies search for a way to take these tasks out of employees' hands. Amanda Swanson, a senior director at Cornerstone Advisors, said Creatio's capacity to unify many of the processes present in traditional CRMs with an accessible user interface makes the system advantageous for financial institutions.
"When you think about a CRM, there has to be some tight integrations," Swanson said. "Being able to have a platform such as Creatio — where there really doesn't have to be a lot of development in theory or programming requirements needed to really develop — I think that becomes a huge value add versus some of the other competitors."
Creatio's platform has an AI-assistant tool that allows employees without technical expertise to develop automated workflows and build applications without code, Dovgan said."You can just provide a narrative of what kind of an application you want to build, and the system will pre-generate that application for you," Dovgan added.
Swanson said the potential for improvement with CRMs in financial institutions is high, but added that the technology will be stunted if it does not complement existing systems or operate under the singular platform.
"I think in the workplace, especially for the banking side of the house, it can be a huge, powerful tool," Swanson said. "From an executive level, there needs to be buy-in so that every business line enterprise-wide is using that CRM."
A credit union's first CRM
Prior to installing Creatio, Ent did not use a CRM system, instead using excel sheets alongside its core banking platform to track customer operations. Pincoski says having Creatio's system in place has given Ent the ability to facilitate customer information and communication between departments. Now, employees can focus on helping customers while the software manages data and account activity.
"Once you've got a CRM platform in place, now you've got all of that communication happening in one place… all that communication is translating directly to a case management system," Pincoski said. "It eliminates the back and forth between the front line and the back office."
For Ent, Creatio's automated CRM capabilities go further than case management, allowing the credit union to eliminate data-driven process errors and focus closely on customer-facing services, Pincoski said. Since the implementation of the platform in 2019, Ent has seen steady
"We've been more successful at delivering value in the past six months than we have in the previous four and a half, five years before that time, " Pincoksi said. "A lot of that has really been enabled by Creatio's Freedom UI and no-code platform."
