Ink on the Interview
Q: Can you share some highlights from the conference so far? Anything stand out for you?
A: I actually really enjoyed the first session that Sandeep did yesterday. The first one where Mark was on the stage and we were talking about solving all the problems for your members. That was a very inspiring session. I think that’s the reason why I liked that session so much. You didn’t get the chance to ask any questions, but that was a very good session.
Q: Let’s talk about how LAFCU is working with Eltropy.
A: We signed up with Eltropy almost two and a half years ago. We almost had the full suite, like the whole package. We initiated with just a bot on our website. Our bot name is Cole, by the way, C-O-L-E, Cole. Our bot has a significant reason for it. It was probably one of, is supposed to be historically, is the first people who actually created money. So we have Cole on our website for almost two years now. We started off from the bot 1.0, which was like Excel sheet-based, where we were putting in tens and answering it. But then, I believe, over like four months ago or so, we transitioned to 2.0. So, it’s a large language bot, and it’s been very successful. We see a lot of very good interactions from there.
Plus, with Eltropy, what we did was we implemented text messaging platforms for our contact center people and the other employees too. There’s a good and bad to it. The good is that it reduces the number of calls, which is good. But the bad is that now it is becoming a thing where we have to add more people to work on the text messaging. Because text messaging is much easier in my opinion. You do it at your time and your pace. You could just send a message and get back to talk for like two hours. Conversation is still there. We have used the text platform for some marketing campaigns as well, for some new announcements that we’re doing. So yeah, it has been a very good journey with Eltropy up until now.
Q: We’ve had a number of credit unions talking about the texting and the collections, how they use that in the collections department. Are you guys using that as well in the collections department?
A: There is a piece of integration I don’t want to share. There’s a piece of integration that I’m very grateful of Eltropy for doing that, actually. That is something I can share. So they listen, they respond, they come back with solutions, at least for me. So I hope I’m not setting a lot of pressure on them. Because we build so many things together with Eltropy. So I think that’s a good working relationship. So we’re waiting for the integration to happen. Once that is done, hopefully successfully by the end of June, we’ll be using it very aggressively for collections as well. They still use it, but not for the whole purpose of collection.
Q: Can you give a quick before-and-after picture? What was life before Eltropy, and what’s it like now at the Credit Union?
A: We learned that our members, as many channels as we can offer them, we learned that they’re going to start using them as much as we want. So that is a good learning that we have from that. Plus, what it did was actually, as I told you, the tech department was people who were just working through the e-services was not as great. So we had to expand that. Now we have to expand that a little bit more. So I feel that, I know initially I said it was a trouble, but it’s a good problem to have. So that is what we’re learning. We actually went live with voice a couple of months ago.
Q: How’s that going?
A: So initially, there were a few issues. I’m not going to say issue in terms of technology. I think it was just the adaptation of the members who realized, okay, we have to talk to a bot right now first. So there were a lot of challenges that we faced through that. But I think not just the team that was working with me, but everybody else was very cooperative. Not just from LabQ side, I think, again, I’m going to mention the Eltropy team, because what we did was we assigned a couple of people from our organization and made them actually check on each and every intent. And we had a working sheet that we were constantly working and fixing it.
Even though the implementation phase was done. So, post-working hours, all the changes that were done around like 11 p.m., we will do the implementation. So it was a very good back and forth, one week of work. So yeah, but now we’re very successful, I’m pretty sure. The call volume is still not where we want it to be, but it’s again very early age.
Q: It sounds like you guys are setting the table for the future. A lot of consumers are still getting used to the voice type of technology when they’re contacting a contact center or something like that, when they’re talking to a voice.
A: I’m just going to go on a grid over here to say this, I don’t know why credit unions are so – it’s a strong word, intimidation. I don’t know why they are so intimidated by this technology. The reason why I say this, I just had an issue with posted services. And I had to make a phone call to their contact center. I had to make a phone call. In that phone call, I just interacted with a bot. Really. I did. And 90% of my issue was resolved. Just through the bot. So if I’m working with a postal service with a bot, I don’t think there’s going to be any issue working with a financial institution. Like, I know we talk about Amazon. Nobody knows what Amazon number is. And everything is resolved. You don’t have to call. Everything is resolved on messaging with Amazon now. I think we as credit unions, I think we’re just limiting what we’re saying at this point.
But your member deserves this. If you think about it this way, if they’re getting this type of service from the postal service, then they deserve the same type of service from the financial institution. It’s not better than your financial institution. That should be the benchmark of where we can exceed from there is the challenge.
Q: Anything else you want to share with us before I let you go on to the rest of the conference?
A: No, thank you so much for having me. It was a good conference, and I’ll see you all maybe next year.
Q: Whenever we’re talking AI, I always tell people it’s going to be super interesting to hear what our conversations about AI are going to be 365 days from now. It could be completely different from what we’re talking about right now.
A: It’ll be exciting. In terms of AI, I had to design something. I was getting something customized done. I was trying to explain to the person how I wanted it to be built, and he’s like I’m picturing it. Is it going to be like this, and I’m like hold on a second, I went to Chat GPT, and I went to one of their tools to design,n and I gave the whole prompt of exactly what I was telling the designer right to do. I literally got 99% exactly what you wanted. I said, here you go. Wow.
