Technology and member experience are very quickly coming together in the world of credit unions. As more people from different generations go online to handle their banking needs instead of going to a branch, smaller to mid-size credit unions are in need of help ensuring that their digital offerings are meeting their standards when it comes to delivering a solid member experience.

Sarah Snell Cooke got to sit down with Glia’s Paul Sheets, EVP of success and services, to discuss the growth of AI in digital member service. He also talked about how Glia is helping small- to mid-size credit unions keep up with the implementation of digital member service.

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Sarah Cooke 00:00
Welcome to The Credit Union Connection. Today, I'm here with Paul from Glia. Welcome. Go

ahead and introduce yourself.

Paul Sheets 00:06
Yeah, Paul Sheets. I'm the Executive Vice President of Success and Services at Glia

Technologies.

Sarah Cooke 00:12
So what does that title mean?

Paul Sheets 00:14

Yeah, good question. Basically, once a credit union decides to partner with Glia, they come into my world. So I have a launch management team that helps implement, configure the software, attach it to high value use cases. And then I also have the customer success managers, which are kind of an ongoing consultant, if you will, that help make adjustments to the program, think about new use cases and just ensure that our customers are getting value from their investment, the technology, so yeah, and kind of after the sale, and that's

Sarah Cooke 00:52

important, doing the hand, that I don't want say hand holdling, I don't mean it to be demeaning, but just like, explaining, like, this is what you can do with it, though. This is like how you open up the Corvette like, Yeah, well,

Paul Sheets 01:03

it's exactly it's exactly right. And we acknowledged that for many credit unions. It's the first time that they've had a digital experience. So a live chat experience and, and we just don't bring a live chat or a digital experience. We bring the ability to upgrade that chat, to add cobrowse to it, to add audio to it or to even upgrade it to a video conversation. So it's, it's like a Ferrari and sometimes you need to learn how to how to use it. Yeah, I

Sarah Cooke 01:42

prefer American made. That's what I want the Corvette. Potato, Potato. It's okay. 78, 79 bet. Pretty good. That's nice. Yeah. So yeah. So, you know, one of the things that we were kind of chatting about before we started recording is the evolution of member service. Yeah, it's very different. Very different than it was even 10 years ago, five years ago, before COVID. Right when we were at GAC. And everybody was like, Oh, COVID, what the heck is this? Then all of a sudden, like a week later, bam, everything shut down. Shut down. Yeah. Right. So talk a little bit about that the acceleration, I went from, like evolution to revolution. And you know how that's going forward? Yeah.

Paul Sheets 02:24

I like that. I like that framing. I mean, one of the things I love about partnering with credit unions, is that there has always been a deep and abiding respect for the community that they serve. Right, like very, very mission driven. And so I think, embedded in the DNA is a genuine care for the members that that they serve. And that's an amazing, that's an amazing starting point. And it's interesting, because when you think about just member experience, generally, I like to think that there are actions that a credit union can take, which tend to be maybe like one way, communications, and then there's interactions. Yeah, which are two way. Research shows that those two way interactions have a disproportionate impact on the member experience, the member sentiment for the organization, member loyalty, their like likelihood to grow the business that they bring to that credit union, though, the thing that I find interesting is that when you survey and you talk to leaders and ask credit union leaders, how many of you feel like you deliver a world class member experience through all interactions? It's not very high, there's acknowledgement that, that they're really good in some areas, but that there's opportunity to evolve in other areas. And that's an exciting place to be. So you've got customers who care deeply about their members. And there's an acknowledgement that there's probably more that can be, can be done. And that's where that's where Glia sits. We, we focus, I mean, our mission, our stated mission is to redefine the way that credit unions serve their members and interact with their members.

Sarah Cooke 04:27

And that's why it's so important right what you were just talking about the interaction, say dialogue, John, talking at people. Right.

Paul Sheets 04:37

Exactly. And part of that one of the things that that I have found is that because of the background of credit unions, right, like there was so much, it's so much focus on the branch experience. Right and just making sure that there is the smiling face, the warm welcome, the fun in branch games, the warm cookies on the counter. Right? Really, really good. And thought

Sarah Cooke 05:04
maybe a coffee, little coffee table? Yeah. Nice. Yeah, it's great, right?

Paul Sheets 05:08

And a lot of thought and care put into the physical interaction, yes. But we know that the way the world is going, more and more interactions are originating when someone is at or near a screen, whether it's a desktop, whether it's their phone. 80, 90% of interactions, right are happening when you're when you're at a screen. And as we think about the rising generation, and how are they going to do their banking, having a digital experience that is built with as much care as the in-branch experience is critical. Yes. And Glia is the software that enables credit unions to do that.

Sarah Cooke 06:01

Yes. And it used to be an also or we also do this, right? And now. I mean, if you look at the data, and I don't remember offhand where I got it from, but there's like 80% of transactions are happening online? Not in the branch anymore. Yeah. The branches are great for certain things. They're wonderful. But yeah, I haven't walked in and other execs, I'm on the board and my credit union, and so I do go into the board meetings. But yes, I mean, other than that, I don't I don't go into our branch. But the interesting thing is I still like so my credit union doesn't actually offer business services. And so I'm self employed. Okay, we I went to another credit union, but I didn't until they had a branch in my area. Yeah, but I'm also not the target audience necessarily, on Gen X. So like, I was never the target. But yeah, I mean, right now, people like me, who are, you know, established in their career, mid 40s. And starting to become empty nesters and whatnot. You know, we, we, we kind of like are in this like, halfway point, like, we grew up without the technology, but we're relatively quickly adapting to it. My parents are even like, online managing the banking and investments and stuff like that. So we adapted, but then younger generations, that's all they are gonna know. And so if you don't do the things you aren't going to get them in to start with. Yeah, right.

Paul Sheets 07:38

Yeah. I mean, it's a great point. I love that you call out that even the older generation, they are adopting technology may be at a slightly slower clip, but they are adopting it. Yes. There. I sometimes feel like there's a belief that they are not, and that it's just a strategy to serve. You know, the millennials or younger, but I think the data shows that. It's it's definitely not the case. There's, there's one other thing that kind of came to mind that I think, maybe goes back to the member experience. Sorry, I'm going back to the question you asked. It's all good. But one of the things that we've also observed across credit unions is that oftentimes, there will be a channel first strategy, like, we want to launch this channel or I have a, I have a phone team or I have a digital team or whatever it is, and there are kind of disparate teams, disparate functions. And one of the innovative things that we're doing at Glia, is we're saying, don't take a channel first approach. Start with the member need. Yes, start with the outcome. Yes, start with that, what is the core need of the member? Because we can agree that if you're reaching out to inquire about branch hours, or asking about where you can get, download your tax statements or your monthly statement. Those are important, but those are relatively simple requests. Then there are needs like, I need a mortgage loan, I need an auto loan, I'm looking for a new credit card. I would like to get a CD. Those are dramatically different interactions more complex, but I would argue a much higher value. And

Sarah Cooke 09:46
yeah, I don't think that's an argument

Paul Sheets 09:48

right. Yeah, not an argument. Yeah. For the for the branch, we should be creating strategies around the need, not the channel. Right. And so one of the things that Glia has done is we flipped that. And we said, we give you the ability to assess the need, and then move the member to the right channel that suited for the need that they have. So you can get it right. Every time. Yep. And

Sarah Cooke 10:18

it's, it's a culture thing, because you're not just getting like, like you were kind of alluding to like a chatbot, you're not just getting a call center, you know, directory kind of thing. You're getting technology, in a strategic level. Yeah, it's not just a technology job, it is also going to severely impact your loan officers is going to significantly impact your call center is going to like you got all these areas of the credit union that it's going to affect and then running it through this, but then running it through a single silo, whether it's IT or whatever. It's not just not smart, we've

Paul Sheets 10:59

all we've all had the interaction, right, where we're engaged, we're chatting with an organization, and they say, oh, you know what, you're gonna have to call this, this number to get help with that. And you're like, Oh, my goodness,

Sarah Cooke 11:15

I chatted for a reason.

Paul Sheets 11:18
When you call, and then you're having to answer all the same questions, and it creates this

abrasive friction

Sarah Cooke 11:26
because they not even friction, abrasive, right? Yeah, that.

Paul Sheets 11:31

And there's a, there's a better way. And, you know, with Glia, if you're chatting, and you figure out that it needs to be a voice interaction, you can upgrade and you can add voice to the chat, and have a two way conversation as if you were calling, right? It's beautiful. Or let's say something started out with an AI, with an AI, virtual assistant. And it gets to a point where the member says, you know, what, I'm not getting the answer. To heck with this, talk to a human. Right, right. And that's okay, like, that's actually the right outcome. often right? Talk to a human, and the interaction goes to the human. The cool thing about Glia and having this unified interaction management platform, is that when AI passes that interaction, to a live agent, they get the history with it. So when they, when they pick it up, they're not asking the same questions all over again. Right? They're seeing the history, they're jumping in. Hi, Susie, it looks like you've been asking about where you can download your statements. Mind if we start a cobrowse session, and I can show you exactly where to do it? Oh my goodness, that would be that would be amazing! That is the type of member experience members want. Yes. And most technologies when you're buying point solutions are incapable of delivering that type of experience. That is what members want, that is where organizations, where credit unions need to go and that's one of the things has me so excited right? Well

Sarah Cooke 13:09

I compare that as you were talking about that. It reminded me like right before this conference, I had to get the battery replaced on my iPhone, and so you know going through the chat there and then let's schedule appointment like you know, it was yes, I had to do that thing because I needed a physical battery put it in my phone. But you know, having that like not having to call in and to make that appointment or you know, just it was seamless and then they're like and once I love Apple stories I don't go off unfortunately which is also a good thing Yeah, but um but yeah, like that they have nailed the experience and that is, we're just comparing ourselves to to to other banking or other you know financial relationships it's comparing, comparing our experience to Netflix, is comparing to Hulu, is comparing it to Amazon you know, yeah, it's not fair we get credit is gonna compete with Amazon but tough.

Paul Sheets 14:09

But, but I love your point that there are other organizations out there that are setting the bar. Yeah, but you know what I I love, I think ePHI has the opportunity to lead in this area because if you look in hospitality, if you look in retail, there are not solutions comparable to what Glia is doing in terms of bringing all of these together under one umbrella. I think this is an area where FIs actually have the opportunity to lead which is really exciting to me.

Sarah Cooke 14:52
So what's going on new at Glia? Anything?

Paul Sheets 14:56
are you do you want like the late breaking?

Sarah Cooke 14:58
I need I need the The breaking news right here. Yeah

Paul Sheets 15:01

breaking news. I'll tell you what has me most, most excited. And I think it's, it has me most excited because I've actually talked to probably three or four different customers today about this. And each time I talked to them, they were like, Oh, my goodness, give me that. So AI, everyone loves talking about AI, I think we can agree there are lots of wrong ways to do AI. But there are right ways to do AI. And I want to talk about one of the ways that I think is really exciting to do AI. But I like to think about AI and kind of three levels. When it comes to credit unions, there's AI that benefits the member in the moment, so I call it visitor, visitor AI. The second is AI that helps the agent do his or her job better. And then the third is AI that benefits the manager. And there is a new feature that is now in product that we are talking about. That is, it's Gen AI powered, automated interaction wrap up. So what that means, and if you're familiar with interaction wrap up, so if you're in a call center, if you are on a call, or if you're doing a chat or something, one of the expectations of the agent is that they assign a topic. So why did the member reach out in the first place. And then to do a quick write a quick paragraph or blurb about what the interaction was about how they handled it, et cetera, it becomes data that's valuable to the manager, it's valuable to decision makers when they're trying to figure out how to improve their how to improve their call center or digital team operation. Well, guess what? If you were to survey 100 call center managers and ask them, how many of them have teams that reliably do the wrap up notes, you would be lucky to find five, you would be lucky to find

Sarah Cooke 17:05

Experienced that recently, too.

Paul Sheets 17:08
Opinion button, it takes a lot of time, right? It's one of those things that there has to be an easier way. Well guess what there is when you leverage the power of Gen AI, when you run the interaction through a Gen AI engine, guess what, Gen AI can identify the topic, Gen AI can leverage a sentiment model to determine if it was a good interaction neutral or a bad interaction. And it can create the wrap up, all of a sudden, what you have is you have an agent that wraps up an interaction, sees the automatically generated content, has the ability to change it if it's misrepresenting it, but then hit send. But the beauty and all of this is now the cost center managers are those who are trying to make strategic decisions about where are our hotspots in the organization, where our members frustrated or where are they dissatisfied, all of a sudden, they are equipped with a level of high fidelity data that they have not had before. Data that allows them to be surgical about how they are improving their operations. You drop it into Pareto diagram, you know, exactly where you begin. oh my gosh, and I love it. I'm a little bit of a dork like that, because I have run a global contact center. And so I know the pain that it's solving. And I love it. So that's that's one of the that's one of the new features that we are out and talking about and excited to tell everyone in the credit union space. Very

Sarah Cooke 18:40

cool. Ya know, it's funny, because you said two things remind me of my MBA classes. One was Pareto. You're welcome. But two was this book called The Goal about bottlenecks, right? And the thing about bottlenecks is, and you can think about it, one of the parallels they make is traffic, right? Like once this person has slowed down, you slow down slower, like it gets worse as you go back.

Paul Sheets 19:06 Yeah. I love that book.

Sarah Cooke 19:11

I'm hating you right now. So um, but yeah, like this is one of the things I'm also hearing in the industry are like, among people like yourselves, the business partners who served both credit unions and community banks that the credit unions are starting to adapt faster, like much faster and much more willing than some of the community banks.

Paul Sheets 19:36

Yes, I'm incredibly energized by some of our credit union partners. very forward thinking leaning into technology. I mean, they, they see the future they acknowledge it and they are adopting it and I would agree, sometimes at a faster clip. Yeah, there there is In fact, at dinner last night, I was with the credit union, that they have a they have a Chief Innovation Officer. They've just gone all in on Glia. So they're doing their call center. They're doing their digital, they're doing their AI, everything, everything with Glia. And we were talking about the future and some of their plans. I left that dinner so inspired by what they and just credit unions in general are doing. Yeah, credit unions are going to be writing the scripts.

Sarah Cooke 20:29

Now. See, you also brought up a little trigger point for me. You mentioned AI a few times throughout. AI. Everybody like, Chat GPT. That's what like made everybody go, I need AI. And it's probably true. At some point. Yeah. But developing that technology, or using that technology at a strategic level? Yeah. Like, like, what do you need it for? What problem are you trying to solve? And so, you know, talk a little bit a bit about that. And what what are the problems that credit unions are looking to AI for? Yeah, They're not talking about RPA.

Paul Sheets 21:05

I see that. Yeah. I really appreciate that, that question. And I think it begins with just acknowledging that, it's new. And it can be intimidating for some people. And one of the things that I'm hearing is, we just need someone to tell us how to do AI responsibly. At Glia, we do AI responsibly. And I'll tell you, so I'm going to go back to the visitor AI, the agent AI and the manager AI for a second, but I'm going to focus on the visitor AI because that's what I think most organizations are referring to, when they talk about AI or when they when they start saying we need Chat GPT They are talking about visitor AI. Right, so here's the thing, you can't just throw generative AI, out onto chat and let whatever, it is scary, comes out. It is irresponsible, you're gonna find yourself committing to things that shouldn't have been committed to saying things that shouldn't have been said. And potentially getting yourself into regulatory hot water, right? Legal trouble and legal trouble, right. We've seen examples of it in other industries and airlines. Right?

Sarah Cooke 22:24
Probably thinking of the same story. Yeah, are

Paul Sheets 22:26

examples of it right. And our approach it Glia is, let's leverage AI, and the understanding models on the front end. So when a member has a question, let's understand it really, really well. But then what we do is we have 800, turnkey responses that what we do is we work with our members, our customers to ensure that so they write a response. They run it through marketing to ensure it has the tone and the voice of the credit union, right, they run it through a compliance and legal to ensure that it's not getting them into hot water. And so what we do is we ensure that a scripted answer that delivers exactly what the credit union wants to be delivered, is matched to the number needed to. You eliminate the risk, you eliminate the hallucinations. And you, you set up AI with guardrails, responsible AI that can be trusted. And guess what, in doing this, our our customers are getting a heads like an average of 65% containment. And so when you think 65% of those are actually being addressed by AI. And then what that does is those others that do go to humans, the humans who are available, have more time to invest in those interactions, and create really high touch interactions. So there is a right way to do it. And it is within reach. And Glia has the has the roadmap we've been at it for, we've been at it for a decade, we have some of the best scientists, linguists. We have conversational AI consultants on staff to hold our customers by the hand and take them on that journey. Because we know it's new. We know it's uncharted water for many organizations. And we have built the infrastructure to ensure that our credit unions can succeed when taking this step. And it's not a question of if they should we know that there's a certain inevitability here. Yeah. But it's helping them be able to take it in a way that is not introducing risk to their brand into their organization. And that's the way we deliver AI. Yep,

Sarah Cooke 24:50
yep. Awesome. So I could go on. Yeah, this is fun.

Paul Sheets 24:55
A half hour. You brought out the goal and the theory of constraints we could go for an hour. I'm

pretty sure.

Sarah Cooke 25:04
But I'm gonna let you I'm gonna wrap up. I'm gonna let you actually wrap up. Final thoughts from you.

Paul Sheets 25:10

Final thoughts for me, you know what, maybe just kind of going back to where we, where we started, I, you know, coming to an event like GAC and just seeing how much these organizations, the impact they're having in their communities, how much they care for their members, and just the societal good that credit unions are doing, I could not be more happy to be partnering with with these organizations. And I just have a conviction that we are able to partner with these organizations and help them modernize the way that they're engaging with their with their members. And it's an exciting time. Yeah, it's an exciting time and I'm grateful to be here for it. Awesome. Thank

Sarah Cooke 25:56

you, Paul.

Paul Sheets 25:57

This is really fun.