$16B Community Bank Turns AI Cost Savings into Human Impact

Bringing AI’s Promise to Life

This $16B community bank understood AI’s promise: Higher efficiency would free up the bank to do more without extra hiring. But what exactly did more actually mean? 

After turning to Glia, the results are clear: The community bank finally has time to upskill agents without compromising service levels. Frontline agents have the opportunity to grow their careers while improving work-life balance. And with AI driving enormous cost-efficiency and time savings, the bank can strategically plan for the future instead of drowning in call volume.

These outcomes add up to one truth: While AI generates eye-popping efficiency numbers, it’s what financial institutions do next that tells the whole story.

Challenge: All Hands On Deck, All The Time

In 2018, this community bank rolled out live chat to ramp up digital support. Encouraged by the fast implementation, easy training, and a strong working relationship with Glia, the bank called on its partner to tackle lingering contact center issues:

• Aging CCaaS that cratered agent productivity and prevented long-term scalability 
• Siloed channels leading to poor CX and agent inefficiency
• Nonexistent self-service, pushing customers to overload agents with routine questions
• Outdated IVR with limited options, leading to a long, wandering call routing experience
• No screen-sharing or CoBrowsing tools, leaving agents in the dark when helping digital customers
• Language barriers for Spanish-speaking customers, adding costs and compromising quality with a third-party interpreter service

These challenges created a vicious cycle: Too many calls. Long wait times. High abandonment rates. Heavy reliance on outsourced support—and a revolving door of burnt-out agents. Faced with relentless turnover, the $16B community bank had little time to invest in staff development or strategically plan for its future.

Solution: AI To The Rescue

The community bank saw Glia as its route to relief. By deploying Glia Voice, and Glia Digital via the Glia Banking AI Platform, the bank helped its frontline team stop drowning and start shining:

• Glia Banker, Glia’s AI agent, built specifically for banks and credit unions, serves as the first line of defense for voice and digital interactions. Handling up to 80% of inquiries without human help, Glia Banker frees up the institution's agents to spend more time on complex interactions. 
• ChannelLess Architecture ensures seamless handoffs between AI and human—so agents can immediately offer help instead of asking callers questions they’ve already answered.
• OnScreen Voice and Video give customers multiple ways to receive personalized help from agents, no phone calls required. 
• CoBrowsing allows agents to take over a customer’s screen and guide them forward during digital interactions, leading to smoother resolutions and less frustration.
• Callback feature lets customers receive a call from an agent rather than taking time out of their day to wait on hold.
• Spanish-language Glia Banker offers instant, fluent support when customers need it—no more waiting (and paying) for third-party translators. 

Equipped with a fully unified platform and a suite of AI-powered features, the institution had what it needed to set up agents for success, offer modern service to customers, and position itself for long-term scalability. 

Results: Cut Costs, Drive Impact

When it came time to prove ROI, the $16B community bank had a wealth of numbers to choose from. First up, the $162K in annual overflow outsourcing costs that it saved by automating 24/7 service with its Glia Banker.

The community bank eliminated another $24K of outsourced spend by replacing its third-party translator service with the Spanish-language Glia Banker, vastly improving service for Spanish-speaking customers at the same time. Deflecting bank-by-phone service with Glia Banker axed an additional $12K in third-party costs. 

For customers, AI empowered the community bank to deliver faster, personalized service to more callers—without adding headcount. Voice AI helped slash call abandonment by 71% while dropping wait times by 35%. 

The higher engagement and faster service actually translated to less volume for agents. After deploying Glia Banker as the first point of contact for calls and chats, agents handled 62% fewer calls and 56% fewer chats—improving speed to answer by over 30% for both channels. 

With AI lightening the load, the financial institution absorbed the attrition of 8 full-time employees—no backfill required.The natural reduction in force occurred without disruption to the rest of their frontline team. In fact, their agents now enjoy more support, better work-life balance, and an improved employee experience—all aided by AI. 

Outcome: From High Turnover to High Performance

With the time savings, efficiency gains, and budget flexibility powered by Glia AI, the $16B community bank now has extra resources to reinvest in its staff. The community bank has since improved agent retention by 71% while reducing turnover to a best-in-class rate of 14%. 

Finally, Time To Train

When the bank’s phones were ringing off the hook, training staff meant pulling them off the phones—at the cost of service levels. Now, with AI deflecting call volume, managers can finally give staff the coaching and support they deserve.

“We no longer have to panic if we want to take our people off the phone and invest in development,” said the VP of Customer Service. “There’s just so much less stress around that.”

The increased freedom to upskill agents comes at the perfect time. With AI handling questions about account balances and routing numbers, agents have the opportunity to step up for complex interactions that require human touch. More time for training gives agents the skills they need to meet every moment.

“We now have time to develop these critical-thinking, emotionally intelligent agents that add value to human interactions,” said the VP of Customer Service. “We’ve never been in such a strong position to invest in our people and build up their skills.”

Career Development, Powered By Better Coaching

For the community bank’s agents, training isn’t just a pathway to better service—it’s an essential part of career development. As the agents learn and sustain new skills, they increase their earning potential. With more time for training agents are now in the drivers’ seat of their careers. Supervisors are finally free to help guide them.

“Supervisors act as coaches for our agents,” said the VP of Customer Service. “They’re now able to ask agents, ‘How can we meet your goals? What training do you need to get there?’”

Backed by this hands-on support from leaders, motivated agents are taking full advantage of ongoing development opportunities.

“We’ve had continuous improvement for years, but it’s really hard if people don’t have time to devote to it,” said the VP of Customer Service. “Agents and supervisors finally have the opportunity and time to invest in development.”

Work and Life, Balanced

While their agents make the most of their career advancement opportunities, they’re also capitalizing on another opportunity unlocked by AI efficiency—work-life balance. 

Before AI, relentless call volume made it hard for agents to even catch their breath, let alone get time back throughout the day. Now, with AI handling more than 60% of calls, the community bank gives agents the option to take time off through the work week. Employees use two-hour blocks for everything from running errands to spending time with their kids—all before hopping back onto the phones to finish out their work day.

The voluntary time-off program has been a win-win for the bank and its employees. The bank can now align staffing with its service level goals, while agents get time back to live their lives. “The team loves it,” said the VP of Customer Service. “It’s great for work-life balance.”

A New Standard For Customer Service

The $16B community bank’s agents aren’t alone in reaping the benefits of AI. For customers, their new AI-powered capabilities have transformed service into a fast, modern experience—without compromising human touch. 

“We believe in relationship banking,” said the bank’s Business System Analyst. “Clients should never have to overcome barriers to speak to a human.” 

Instead of creating obstacles to human help, Glia AI gives their customers more ways to receive the right support at the right time—leading to less waiting and less abandonment.

Glia Banker, trained to handle 1000+ banking journeys right out of the box, allows customers to quickly self-serve via phone or chat—24 hours a day, 365 days a year. When customers need human help, AI preps agents with context before the interaction begins, resulting in faster, more satisfying service. 

Spanish-speaking customers, no longer directed to a third-party translator, now enjoy a significantly improved experience. The Spanish-language Glia Banker resolves routine inquiries while passing more complex requests directly to the bank’s bilingual agents. As a result, the bank offers standout assistance that transcends language barriers, showcasing how AI improves financial access to diverse populations. 

For the Business System Analyst, these advancements are a testament to Glia’s role in not only improving the customer experience, but connecting the contact center to the broader business. 

“Thinking about Glia as an enterprise solution, Glia makes the client experience so consistent and seamless,” they said. “We’re not just this siloed contact center anymore. We’re an extension of every client-facing team.”

What’s Next: Scaling Without Hiring & Strategically Planning for the Future

Looking forward, the Business System Analyst is excited about the outsized opportunities now open to their financial institution—without the need to supersize their team. 

“We can get into more high-touch areas without growing this huge, massive team,” they said. “That was going to be a big expense before, but that’s no longer the case.”

With Glia’s Banking AI Workforce extending the community bank’s team capacity and service quality, new strategic initiatives are now in scope for the bank. Possibilities include establishing a dedicated fraud prevention center, previously a goal that would require cost-prohibitive investment of time and resources. 

They are also open to the idea of scaling service by adding Interactive Teller Machines (ITMs), essentially bringing its AI-powered digital and voice customer service straight to its ATMs. 

Additionally, with AI allowing the bank to keep its workforce right-sized while increasing service levels, they can now consider M&A without having to plan for extra headcount.  

As the $16B community bank strategically considers long-term options, it will continue investing in its agents while improving service and planning with its next rollout of Glia AI features: 

• LiveTranscribe automates interaction transcriptions in real time, speeding up manager reviews and ensuring agents never lose context while helping customers
• Quality Analyst lets managers ask questions in natural language to instantly uncover interaction insights related to quality control, compliance, and coaching 
• Insights Analyst transforms reporting by letting leaders generate custom visual reports and dashboards to track all interaction data
• Forecast Analyst gives the bank 20/20 vision for workforce planning, so it can align staffing to service level goals even as AI continues to enhance efficiency 

Added to its current Glia suite, these AI features will power the bank’s ongoing efforts to reinvest in its staff, elevate service, and take a strategic approach to growth.

“Glia gives us the ability to be proactive,” the Business System Analyst said. “We’re now able to think about how we can continue to modernize the contact center—how we can develop our reps, plan for the future, and be strategic. It’s really nice to have that calm.”

How Will You Use Your AI Efficiency Gains?

By reinvesting in its staff, improving its customer experience, and getting time back to strategically plan for its future, this community bank proves that AI efficiency gains go far deeper than stats and numbers. But their success raises one additional question: What will AI make possible for your financial institution?

Glia helps you turn AI efficiency into human impact across your organization. Reach out today to find out how.