By Karl Appel
When members have a question, they want an answer fast. And increasingly, they want that answer at 10 p.m. on a Sunday, not just during business hours. Not only that, but members do not want to be on a phone call for minutes trying to find answers to their questions. That’s the reality credit unions face today, and it’s exactly the challenge our credit union set out to solve.
Here’s how a simple technology decision is paying off in a big way.
Back in 2021, Sunmark Credit Union launched chat agents on both our mobile banking app and website to give members a convenient way to get help without picking up the phone or sending an email. That first year, members used it about 18,000 times. By 2024, that number had grown to over 27,000 chats — a clear sign that members were embracing the channel and relying on it.
But as usage grew, so did the question: how do we keep up without simply adding more staff?
Enter the Chatbot –No, Not the Scary Kind
In January 2025, we took the next step by deploying an AI-powered chatbot to handle a portion of those incoming chats. Before you picture the rogue and hallucinating AI, you may have seen in the headlines, let us be clear — this isn’t that. Our bot is designed to answer straightforward, predefined questions that members ask repeatedly. Things like:
- Where do I find current auto loan rates?
- How do I transfer money from savings to checking?
- What the credit union’s routing number?
- How do I reset my online banking password?
These are real questions with real answers that already exist on our website. The bot simply finds them and delivers them instantly, any time of day or night. Members are happier.
The Results Speak for Themselves
After implementing the chatbot, total chat volume actually rose to 35,000 — but here’s the key insight: the bot handled 14,000 of those conversations on its own, without any human involvement. Our staff only needed to step in for the remaining 21,000 chats. That’s not just efficiency — it’s smarter resource allocation.
At the same time, we saw a 30% reduction in member emails, meaning even more cost savings and less human intervention. When members can get quick answers through chat at any hour, they simply don’t need to send as many messages and wait for a reply.
What This Means in Real Dollars
The chatbot’s impact adds up to roughly 1.5 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff in workload handled. The cost to implement and maintain the bot runs about 0.5 FTE. The net result is the equivalent of one full-time position saved — and with it, thousands of dollars in annual salary and benefits costs.
For a large bank, one position may not turn heads. But for community-focused credit unions operating on leaner budgets, that’s a meaningful difference. It’s the kind of savings that can be redirected toward better member rates, improved services, or other investments in the community.
The Bottom Line & Takeaway
Technology does not have to be intimidating to be effective. Our chatbot is not replacing the personal relationships that make our credit union special — it is helping preserve them by freeing up our team to focus on the conversations that truly need a human touch.
One of the biggest lessons we learned was that the technology works best when it is continuously refined based on real member behavior. For example, members sometimes need to change their password for security reasons, so the chatbot now answers questions like, “How do I reset my online banking password?” with clear guidance. Members also frequently asked about payments, transfers, balance checks, spending, and product offerings, so we made sure those were core topics the chatbot could handle.
The more we paid attention to where members were getting stuck, the better the chatbot became at delivering helpful, high-quality responses. Simple questions can now be answered instantly, around the clock, at a fraction of the cost — benefiting both our members and our bottom line.
Karl Appel is a Senior Software Engineer at the NY Bureau of Vital Records, where he leads legacy-to-cloud migrations under strict HIPAA compliance. He brings his experience in credit-union oversight and governance with more than seven years of board and supervisory committee service, pairing deep familiarity with regulated financial controls to modern technology. He can be reached at [email protected]
