As the credit union industry continues to grow at an unprecedented rate, credit unions must be flexible, agile, and competitive. One way to stay ahead of their peers is by focusing on customer experience.
Chat technology provides the channel for credit unions to help connect with their members in a meaningful way, ultimately providing more value to their members. Chat and chatbots are an excellent tool for boosting customer engagement rates and letting credit union members get more information about your offers without waiting.
How can credit unions improve member engagement?
Credit unions typically have lower fees on loans, higher savings rates, and a more personalized approach to customer service for their members when compared to other financial institutions. These member-owned unions typically invest their profits back into the communities through outreach programs and encourage community involvement.
However, the only way credit unions can keep these benefits is to continue offering their members a high level of customer service in person and digitally. This is possible by providing a variety of digital channels and technologies.
Using live chat and chatbots to enhance digital customer support
Live chat allows members to contact the business in real-time. A live chat software solution should be at the center of every member engagement strategy for credit unions. It's a very popular medium owing to its ease and speed and can be installed on any website, making it incredibly accessible to all digital capabilities.
With live chat, members can interact in real-time and resolve their issues with chat agents guiding them through in a highly personalized manner. It's also useful for the information it can offer. With live chat, credit unions can understand how and why members approach them and tailor offerings to be more flexible to evolving needs.
Credit union live chat is the most effective channel to connect, but many can't provide 24/7 support and are thus constrained in how they can help members. This is where chatbots become an invaluable asset.
Chatbots allow credit unions to quickly answer frequently asked questions (FAQs) and help guide members through various self- service and automated processes. They can also promote new products and services or upcoming events.
A chatbot can address various member requests around-the-clock without human guidance, whether support teams are online or not. AI chatbots can manage multiple queries and complex interactions since they comprehend the query intent and give the best possible response.
For a complete credit union member experience, an omnichannel solution is another crucial aspect of providing a great customer service. Messaging is another tool that allows members to interact with their credit union through multiple channels, such as web, social channels and SMS. This offers two key benefits.
1. It allows members to contact out in any way they desire – live chat, social networking sites, SMS, or email - and yet receive the same exceptional service. This enhances the user experience while also improving interaction with future members.
2. An omnichannel interaction enables credit unions to offer personalized service. Credit unions now have access to a large amount of data on each member thanks to unifying all channels and events into a single system. They can offer far more customized and authentic services with this data.
Benefits of using chat solutions for credit unions
When it comes to providing excellent customer service, credit unions have a lot to gain from using chat solutions.
Improve user experience
Chatbots can answer common questions and direct members to the right resources, while live chat provides a more personal touch that can build trust and rapport.
Alleviate strain on customer service teams
Chat technology can help to ease the stress on customer service teams. By automating simple tasks and freeing up customer service agents to handle more complex issues, chat solutions can help credit unions improve efficiency and reduce costs.
Automatic sales tool
Chatbots are an effective sales tool. By asking qualifying questions and directing members to the most relevant products and services, chatbots can help credit unions close more sales and generate new revenue streams.
Gather customer data
Chat applications can help credit unions gain valuable data about their members. Credit unions can gain insights that will help them improve their products, services, and overall member experience by tracking interactions and analyzing member behavior.
Better data security
Chat software solutions offer several security features to help credit unions protect their members' information. For example, many chat software solutions provide a secure environment with encryption, secure forms and authentication features to help credit unions keep their members' data safe.
Live chat and chatbot use cases
Live chat and chatbots serve different purposes at specific stages of the customer journey. Financial institutions can use a hybrid model where customers can initiate interaction with a chatbot and then move to a human agent for a high-touch experience.
- Automate routine banking operations: Chatbots are ideal for streamlining regular bankingactivities. Members can receive quick responses without having to visit thebranch. Whether opening a new account, reporting a lost card, checking accountbalances, or other essential banking services, conversational AI offers userscontrol over the entire process through a friendly, self-service UI without needinga human agent unless they want to.
- Handling complex queries: For sensitive issues like mortgages or insurance, userscan ask simple questions to a chatbot to gain answers. However, they valuespeaking with a live chat representative directly before making a finaldecision. This also eliminates the need for pre-programmed bots with everypotential solution.
- Rapid, personalized responses: Credit unions can break down customer service barriersby providing fast, accurate, and consistent answers to queries about theirproducts and services. Powerful integrations, such as user first-party data,can offer replies tailored to member needs, which improve over time withself-learning AI.
How to use live chat and chatbots for a credit union
Integrating live chat with a chatbot can improve the member experience. When customers have a query, they can address it to the chatbot and seamlessly move the conversation to a live chat representative when more detailed inquiries arise. This avoids the need for members to reauthenticate, add context, or exit the digital channel, increasing overall speed and efficiency.
Hence, chatbots can act as a gateway, separating basic low-stakes issues from more complex ones and addressing customer demands during on and off hours. Queries that need further attention and caution can be routed to an expert agent via live chat when availability is on, or to provide other sources of communication such as leaving a message or scheduling a call.
When using live chat, co-browsing provides agents with the helpful context of the member's visual experience, so they can further personalize support. This is a feature that credit unions can greatly benefit from since it offers a very safe approach to support and guide members digitally with a collaborative experience during challenging activities.
It's also convenient since it allows users to receive "high-touch," one-on-one attention from the comfort of their own homes. As a result, consumer satisfaction and member engagement amplify.
Here are some examples of how credit unions can use live chat and chatbots:
- Assign incoming queries to chat agents efficiently according to the request urgency, agent competency, and workload.
- Automate canned responses to minimize response time.
- Use conversational AI chatbots to collect customer feedback, which can aid in pushing service improvements.
- Recommend products and services based on customer data and interaction.
- Connect a knowledge base with a chatbot and ensure a successful self-service support by automating FAQ and providing useful articles to guide members with their queries.
What to consider when choosing chat software?
When choosing a chat solution for your credit union, there are several important factors to consider. The most important thing to remember is that the solution must be easy to use and offer a great user experience. Other essential factors to consider are:
1. Ability to handle high volumes of chats
The chat solution should be built to be able to handle multiple chats at once without any issues. It should also have the capacity to scale up as needed.
2. Provide 24/7 support
The chat solution should provide 24/7 support to meet the needs of all members. You risk losing opportunities if your chatbot cannot transfer chats, create tickets, or quickly redirect to an operator.
Tip: Credit unions can design strategies to smoothly transfer member service requests from chatbots to reps. One method is to limit the number of times a chatbot can address a query before sending it to a customer care representative. This is often managed by a workflow configuration in the chatbot itself or the channel via which the chatbot is accessible.
3. Hosting capabilities
Chat technology is offered in two forms: hosted solution or a standalone installation. Hosted solutions are easier to set up and require less investment, whereas, for standalone systems, credit unions can host the service on their systems, which offers more flexibility with customization and configuration but also requires more investment upfront. Hosted solutions are best for most businesses starting with live chat and chatbots, especially if you're testing the waters.
4. Security
Since credit unions gather sensitive data via chat, it's critical to maintain a secure environment. Look for solutions that offer the best security factors to manage sensitive member data and information. Look for features such as SSL encryption, secure forms, data masking, data encryption, and adherence to industry regulations, like PCI Compliance and GDPR compliance (if doing business internationally).
5. Integrate with other systems
The chat solution should be able to integrate with other backend systems within the credit union, such as CRM software. This helps the internal team of agents with productivity as they won't have to navigate multiple systems at once but rather connect to the CRM from the engagement platform.
6. Co-browsing capabilities
Co-browse is a collaboration tool that can be used during live chat engagements to enable an agent during a chat to see and navigate the web page the visitor is seeing in real-time, without downloading any software. It helps agents to deliver a highly personalized service, a one-on-one guided assistance in a secure environment.
Transform your credit union with chat solutions
Credit unions digital transformation is essential if they want to keep up with the competition and meet the ever-increasing expectations of their members. Chatbots and live chat are potent tools that can help credit unions improve customers digital experiences, stay competitive and relevant.
Members can engage with a representative similarly to they would at a branch. They can obtain account information, complete and submit forms, as well as provide relevant evidence such as a driver's license or social security number. Everything they could want in person can be provided digitally with chatbots and live chat.
