Northern Credit Union saw call volumes triple during the pandemic, straining its contact center and impacting service quality. To reduce pressure, eliminate wait times, and ensure consistent support, Northern needed a scalable and ROI-generating solution
By deploying interface.ai’s Voice AI Assistant, Northern Credit Union is now providing round-the-clock support, automating routine member inquiries, and improving both member and staff experience through increased efficiency and reduced call volume.
Northern Credit Union has been helping members live their best financial lives for over 60 years. With $410M+ in assets and nine relationship centers across Northern New York, Northern serves over 36,000 members through its commitment to Banking-on-the-Go, personalized service, and a culture of innovation.
“We have high expectations for servicing our members. Our vision is to create the most seamless experience for our members.”
When the pandemic hit, Northern Credit Union’s call volumes tripled, creating major bottlenecks that made it difficult to consistently deliver the high service levels their members expect. Long wait times and increased abandonment became recurring issues. Northern needed a solution that could ease the load on its contact center, eliminate delays, and maintain a strong, responsive member experience.
“With the onset of the pandemic, our call volumes tripled. This impacted our ability to maintain a high service level 100% of the time. We wanted a solution that would help us overcome this challenge.”
“We were looking for a solution to eliminate abandonment rates and call wait times while enabling us to provide a great member experience.”
To address rising call volumes and improve member experience, Northern turned to artificial intelligence – specifically a Voice AI Assistant that could handle high-frequency inquiries and provide support around the clock. After evaluating more than 20 vendors, Northern selected interface.ai for its deep expertise in financial services, credit union-specific capabilities, and strong cultural alignment.
“We have evaluated over 20 vendors for this engagement. We shortlisted interface.ai based on the vision, the culture fit, and the wide range of out-of-the-box solutions specific to financial institutions. Unlike other IVA vendors, interface.ai has deep domain expertise in financial institutions and has a well-defined product roadmap. This coupled with an innovator’s mindset, member-first attitude & product vision acted as key differentiators in choosing interface.ai as our partner.”
With interface.ai’s Voice AI Assistant now live, Northern is delivering consistent 24/7 service while significantly reducing wait times and call volume. Members can get immediate answers to routine questions—such as balances, hours, and recent transactions—without waiting on hold or relying on live agents.
“Our members frequently contact us with common issues. An IVA will help us give a consistent response to all our members who have common queries and will assist in building our members’ knowledge more coherently.”
The automation of transactional tasks has also created space for agents to focus on high-value conversations, improving both the member experience and employee satisfaction.
“The IVA will free up our employees from working on transactional activities and enhance the quality of work, thus improving employee morale. This, in turn, will help us in retaining our staff and also recruiting the best talent.”
Perhaps most importantly, Voice AI has enabled Northern to deliver the kind of seamless, on-demand support that modern members expect—while eliminating the pain points of long hold times and inconsistent service.
“There are several issues with how contact center servicing works. No member likes to wait for several minutes to speak with their credit union… Voice AI will circumvent these problems and enable us to service our members, round the clock.”
By partnering with interface.ai, Northern Credit Union has transformed how it supports members – moving from reactive, staff-limited service to a proactive, AI-first model that ensures every member gets the help they need, instantly and consistently. With operational efficiency up, staff engagement rising, and service quality protected, Northern is better equipped to serve its members today, and grow sustainably for the future.
“The pandemic has made member behavior on call centers permanent. There is a sustained increase in call center traffic, in the order of 30–40% on average, across financial institutions. This increased traffic has resulted in increased wait times & abandonment rates leading to poor member experience. We believe implementing Intelligent Virtual Assistants is the only way for most financial institutions to offer timely support, provide personalized service to members at scale and manage operations efficiently. We are excited to partner with Northern Credit Union and enable them to improve their service levels, engage better with their members, and also seamlessly onboard new members.
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