Park City Credit Union Brings Members Closer with Video

Park City Credit Union holds roughly $350 million in assets for its more than 24,000 members across eight counties in central Wisconsin, a very rural area where many of the members live 30 minutes or more from the nearest branch.

That rural nature and staff limitations led the credit union to seek out a text messaging solution a number of years ago. It has had tremendous success with the text messaging solution from Eltropy, which it implemented about five years ago.

Eltropy specializes in conversation platforms for community financial institutions. Its texting solution showed immediate impact: while voice messages typically got one response out of 10, text messages got responses from six or seven members out of 10. Park City also reduced average call wait times, with 90 percent of calls answered within 30 seconds, by driving members to use texting and other self-service channels.

While that helped provide quicker service, it didn’t help members looking for face-to-face meetings with their bankers, hampered not only by the distance issue, but also by the fact that most branches are only accessible by smaller roads that become impassable during the many snowstorms that hit the area each winter.

“Wait times in the branches were becoming incredibly long,” says Melissa Wrycha, chief experience officer of Park City Credit Union, which was founded in 1938 as Cooperative League Credit Union. So the financial institution turned on in-branch video, chat, appointment management, and other advanced features in Eltropy’s Unified Digital Platform.

The appointment manager meant that members no longer had to call in and wait on hold to book meetings.

“We also wanted the reporting capabilities so that we could understand what was coming into the branch,” Wrycha says. “So a couple of months ago, we turned on the lobby management solution, which fits in with the appointment management solution. It allows us to check in the walk-ins and the pre-booked appointments. We can get reports on who’s coming in and why, what they are doing, and how long those appointments are taking.”

The most recent addition has been video banking, which the credit union added a couple of months ago. “So far it’s been fantastic,” Wrycha says. “Eltropy has changed the dynamic of our credit union so that we could focus on staffing for our credit union vs. a specific branch.”

Eltropy’s video banking capability has also enabled Park City to maintain service at understaffed branches by connecting members with staff at other locations.

Since the credit union already had the Eltropy platform in place, there was little to be done technically before adding the additional features, according to Wrycha. However, with the addition of video, the credit union changed the interior look of its branches to make them more camera-friendly, adding large video screens and replacing traditional desks with tables.

Additionally, all branch personnel had to be trained on the equipment since there are no dedicated video bankers. And then, everything needed to be tested to ensure it all worked seamlessly together.

With the new digital capabilities from Eltropy, Park City has reduced wait times for walk-ins down to 15 minutes and for pre-booked appointments to five minutes, while providing the same member services with two fewer full-time employees.

Additionally, the Eltropy platform has enabled the credit union to expand into new markets and offer new services without opening new physical branches and accelerated the hiring process.

Park City Credit Union plans to continue expanding its use of the Eltropy platform. This includes video deposits and some AI-powered features.

The credit union also sees opportunities to integrate Eltropy further with other critical partner systems, such as its Sync1 Systems loan origination system.

“We’re taking a methodical approach to integration,” Wrycha adds. “Each new connection helps us create an even more seamless experience for our members.”

The Payoff

Since adding the video banking features, appointment, and chat features of Eltropy’s Unified Digital Platform, Park City Credit Union has done the following:

• reduced wait times for walk-ins down to 15 minutes and less than 5 minutes for pre-booked appointments; and
• cut two full-time employees without affecting service levels.