Lake Michigan Credit Union scales better member engagement with Comm100 Live Chat & AI Chatbot

Serving one in six inhabitants of the state of Michigan, and half a million members across the United States, Lake Michigan Credit Union is one of the largest credit unions in the country. Keeping their members’ best interests in mind, they always strive to provide friendly, knowledgeable services, as well as the very latest in online banking and mobile banking technologies.

As a credit union, Lake Michigan Credit Union’s (LMCU) goal isn’t to generate profits for shareholders – it’s to improve the lives of their nearly half a million members. With six billion dollars trusted in the organization, LMCU wanted to deepen their commitment and focus on members, giving them as many outlets to reach them as possible. Ranked number one in in the nation for asset growth and Return of Member, LMCU had been eyeing the adoption of live chat to see if it was catching on, taking a more conservative approach to change management to minimize risk and inconvenience for their members.

LMCU’s decision-making process is guided by one unalterable consideration: what’s best and right for their members. A key criterion for any new technological investment they chose had to sufficiently meet the needs of both members and associates. Comm100’s robust integration capabilities, ease of use, and mobile offerings were all competitive differentiators that tipped the scales for LMCU. During the solution vetting process, they found that Comm100 stood out for its value and ability to help the institution achieve its service goals.

Since implementing Comm100Live Chat in June 2015, LMCU has seen a steady increase in chat volume. Comm100’s solution integrates smoothly with LMCU’s existing channels, which includes phone calls, emails, and online banking. By adding live chat to their omnichannel service strategy, LMCU is now able to connect with its members more easily and deliver quality service over more channels.

Thanks to Comm100’s robust security standards, members are able to retrieve account information safely through live chat. Comm100’s MaximumOn technology meant that members enjoyed guaranteed uptime, keeping LMCU’s live chat accessible and reliable. Members love the convenience of chatting in the mobile app, getting answers on the go with less effort.

Internally, Comm100’s live chat was a fast success. LMCU’s development team needed a configurable live chat solution and prioritized hassle-free deployment. Comm100’s solution hit the mark.

LMCU management uses Comm100’s reporting features to monitor chat quality, agent performance, and visitor satisfaction. With real-time live chat data available on the dashboard, management could see information such as how long visitors were waiting in the queue and how many chats were currently in the queue. By reviewing history data reports, management could compare performance over different periods of time, and identify key visitor pain points. By allocating team members and increasing staff, LMCU is able to decrease wait times and abandoned chats.

Comm100’s simple agent-friendly interface was easy to train agents on, and staff from multiple departments attested to the system’s straightforward nature. Of Comm100’s agent-facing features, LMCU agents particularly enjoyed the group and private canned responses that are built into the system.

Following the success of Comm100 Live Chat, LMCU decided that their member support could be improved even further with a chatbot. Having a good relationship with Comm100 for over five years, LMCU chose to integrate their AI Chatbot into their live chat solution.

Before the chatbot was set up, LMCU could only provide support to their members during their business hours. They also couldn’t offer support on weekends. With Comm100 AI Chatbot now implemented, LMCU’s members can access support 24/7, improving engagement as well as CSAT.

On first launching their chatbot, LMCU wished to proceed cautiously. They pride themselves on delivering excellent support and developing personal connections with their members, but also recognized the value of 24/7 support that the bot could bring to both the company and its members.

As a result of this caution, the chatbot was initially programmed to only appear on certain pages. However, very soon they were impressed by its results and launched the bot site-wide to greet every live chat.

The bot resolves the most common member queries and passes the chat onto an agent if it cannot answer the question, or if the member makes it clear they would rather speak to an agent. LMCU also always offers a button within the live chat window that lets the member talk to an agent at any time.

As LMCU continue to fine-tune their chatbot, they are identifying more common member questions and adding these into the chatbot’s repertoire, so it continues to manage a greater and greater portion of total live chats.

Overall, LMCU recommends Comm100 for its ease of use – both for its staff and its members.