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A CEO and Consultant’s Perspective On Voice, AI and Digital Transformation Part 1
Retail banking’s digital revolution is changing everything credit unions do for their members.
If credit unions react as they have in the past, by being first to market with online ATMs, online banking, and other technology, they will build on their long-term service and price advantages. If they don’t, banks, BigTech and FinTechs will build on recent wins and the credit union industry will go the way of savings banks.
Fundamental shifts in retail models, and disruptions in banking such as digital transformation, are the opportunities of a lifetime. Credit unions have a unique and extraordinary window for growth because the playing field in banking has been leveled. Huge branch networks, with equally large expenses, are no longer required to expand in current or new markets, whether those markets are communities or additional select employee groups. Digital services powered by data and AI, and now enriched by voice, offer a lower cost of entry and potentially vastly improved services.
In my opinion, what credit unions need is a new platform that connects their disparate digital operations into one easy-to-access and use digital channel: Voice. Such an environment would allow them to maintain their long-held service superiority AND decrease costs to support their pricing advantages.
Banks have figured out the digital secret and are beating credit unions at their game – service! Slick, efficient and customer-friendly omnichannel digital services, powered by data that offers the next-best product or that approves a loan instantly, is now provided by the biggest banks and tech firms. It is working! See any recent study on trust or service and you will find a major bank or payment platform beating credit unions in digital service rankings. Credit unions need to answer the challenge and gain the upper hand on service or they stand to lose a major reason for their existence and success. Service matters to every credit union; it is in their DNA. Banks have figured out that being friendly and providing extraordinary service means giving the customer digital options. Credit unions, for the most part, have not.
The answer is a new model: A voice user interface supported by artificial intelligence that makes the banking experience extraordinary. An experience which seamlessly connects all digital services!
Another sustainable business advantage that credit unions have traditionally enjoyed is price. Because credit unions are cooperatively owned, they do not have to answer to the stockholder or pay taxes. This lowers the cost of operations and allows for better pricing. Enabled by scale and powered by data and digital, price is an incredible advantage in the commoditized market.
Better price is also a function of lower costs. Until now, credit unions have had lower branch expenses, marketing costs, employee expenses and loan losses. With digital and data entering the market, suddenly banks and FinTechs have an opportunity to gain the upper hand. They are reducing branches, lowering the cost of lending, improving their risk performance through data, using digital marketing to offer the right product at the right time, and automating back-office operation functions.
What can credit unions do? Use voice, data and AI to connect member channels, improve service delivery and cut costs in the back office.
A voice interface coupled with digital integration changes every interaction and reduces costs by reducing the number of full-time employees required to serve members in branches and to facilitate lending applications, make collection calls, and staff call center operations.
Everything changes when members can open an account, ask for a loan, request a debit card and interact with an AI conversationally just using their voice. The credit union’s foundational advantages are reinvented, service and price advantages are maintained, costs are reduced, and digital disruption becomes a digital advantage!
Voice is the answer.
Start today! Join the dozens of credit unions that are already giving their members the power of voice using BIG’s FIVE Conversational Banking Platform.
Contact us today
Read Part 2 here: https://www.big-fintech.com/Media/Blog/ArticleID/440/Digital-Transformation-part-2
Read Part 3 here: https://www.big-fintech.com/Media/Blog/ArticleID/441/Digital-Transformation-Part-3