By Ray Birch
BANNOCKBURN, Ill.–Artificial intelligence, and specifically so-called “conversational AI,” has come along at just the right time for one credit union that has joined a growing number of financial institutions using the tool to take the load off time- and resource-challenged call centers.
Great Lakes Credit Union has introduced “Olive,” a call center bot that leverages conversational AI to route calls, conduct phone banking transactions and decrease member wait times. The $1.3-billion GLCU partnered with Silicon Valley-based interface.ai to create the new service.
COO Elizabeth Osborne told CUToday.info the tool comes at a time when Great Lakes CU’s call center has been facing challenges in keeping skilled call center staff.
“The member contact center was moved under my purview about a year ago, and I was tasked with taking a hard look at the team, because they were struggling at the time,” said Osborne, adding that GLCU views the Olive solution as a means of enhancing the roles of the call center team, including spending more time with members who have more time-intensive requests. “We were having a tough time retaining the right employees, supporting our members and answering phone calls. We had older technology, so I started looking for partners we could leverage that would help.”
Seeking a ‘Conversation’
In particular, Osborne said she was seeking technology that would provide members with an easy-to-use solution and allow them to have a “conversation” and get solutions and answers for quick, transactional questions.
“interface.ai was one of several partners that I vetted. I found their technology to be far advanced from some of their competitors,” she said.
Conversational AI is a type of artificial intelligence that can simulate human conversation. It is made possible by natural language processing, a field of AI that allows computers to understand and process human language.
“Olive and is truly conversational,” Osborne stated. “When members contact us via our primary phone number she always picks up and asks what she can do to help them. Members have verbal conversations and they can ask questions, such as can you tell me about my current account balance, or when did my Social Security deposit hit my account. Instead of typing questions via an online chatbot they're actually having conversations. This really personalizes the experience.”
Not a Human
GLCU advertises Olive as its new virtual assistant.
“When you speak with her it's clear you’re not speaking with a human person,” reminded Osborne. “We have created an avatar for her for our website and social media postings. We tried to make her almost like a cartoon, to make her more fun and enjoyable. We like having the avatar so members can have something to think about or visualize when they speak with Olive.”
GLCU also has introduced a new call center solution in tandem with the addition of Olive.
“All of this provides our staff with more time so they can spend quality time with our members that really need more dedicated support,” she said.
‘Good Starting Point’
Osborne described the addition of Olive to the call center team as being like the installation of coin and cash machines inside lobbies to remove many of the smaller, reoccurring requests tellers face daily.
“I would say for now this is a good starting point for Olive,” Osborne said. “She starts out with more simple transactions, and our top percentage of calls. She focuses on our number-one category of questions consistently, every single day. And the number-one category of questions that members were calling us about are transaction-related things, such as can you tell me my current balance, my last five transactions, or enroll me in online banking…”
Following Olive’s first day on the job in August, Osborne said the credit union received about 1,600 calls, 33% of which were fully handled by Olive.
“Over 500 of those members spent one minute and 30 seconds on the phone,” she said. “That tells me they're able to get the answer they need quicker and faster and then move on. But, if they need to speak with an agent they have the ability to do that by just saying they need to talk to someone. Olive then quickly runs the call to the right person.”
A ‘Pleasant Surprise’
Elizabeth Osborne
Osborne said she was “pleasantly” surprised with the initial results from Olive’s first day.
“I spoke with several people before we made a decision on Olive and they said we should expect about 40% automation of calls within the first one to two months. I think we are off to a good start,” she said.
As Olive speaks with more members, she becomes smarter, reminded Osborne about the capabilities of conversational AI.
“And, too, if she hears questions that she's not able to answer, that feedback is brought back to my team and we will update Olive via the interface,” Osborne noted. “We will be constantly enhancing Olive to meet our members’ needs.”
Osborne estimates about 100 financial institutions are using conversational AI.
‘Hard to Find People’
“It's really hard to find the right call center people anymore,” Osborne said. “It's a tough job and you're asking individuals to know a variety of information that they may not have experience with. Sometimes that can be a bit intimidating. It's also hard to retain them because they're highly sought after. Olive helps us to ensure we are staffed at the right level with people that can support our members and spend the time with them.
“I see the call center team evolving and adjusting over time, especially over the next few months,” continued Osborne. “I expect some call center individuals will begin transitioning over to e-services and other types of digital roles, like online chat and online account opening.”
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