Case Study

Credit Unions

Alliant Credit Union: Launching Banking AI in 8 Weeks, Adding 5 FTEs Without Hiring

After replacing its fragmented servicing model with a unified banking AI platform in just eight weeks, Alliant Credit Union is on track to save more than 10,500 hours of employee work annually—the equivalent of 5 full-time employees.

10,500+

Annual frontline hours potentially saved through operational efficiencies, equivalent to more than 5 full-time employees

73,000+

Concurrent conversations handled, expanding overall workforce capacity

293,000+

Total chat interactions completed autonomously with Glia Banker and customer care teams

Weeks from contract signature to full production launch

About Alliant Credit Union

Location

Chicago, IL

Branches

One of the largest fully digital credit unions in the U.S.

People

889K Members

Assets

$19.7B AUM

Award

Website

www.alliantcreditunion.org

“As a digital-first institution, our goal is to provide fast, flexible support across every channel our members choose. Partnering with Glia enabled us to modernize our engagement model by unifying digital and voice support with Banking AI in just eight weeks. Glia Banker handles routine inquiries instantly, freeing our frontline customer care teams to deliver high-touch service and build deeper member relationships.”

Stephani Foss

Chief Operations Officer

Challenges

Solution

Challenge

Disconnected support options forced members to leave digital banking sessions to seek phone support.

Solution

Glia’s Banking AI Platform empowers Alliant to deliver authenticated, unauthenticated, and proactive digital chat directly within digital banking workflows.

Challenge

Frontline customer care teams faced high voice volumes for routine transactions, leading to long wait times and inefficient service.

Solution

Glia Banker automates routine inquiries and passes complex cases to agents, who now can serve multiple members simultaneously via chat.

Challenge

Disconnected chat and phone interactions forced members to restate their inquiries when shifting channels.

Solution

ChannelLess® Architecture and Chat-to-Voice Escalation carry context during transfers, allowing members and agents to smoothly transition between voice and digital support.

Challenge

Lack of proactive, real-time support resulted in Alliant losing prospects during the loan application process and account opening process.

Solution

CoBrowsing gives agents a tool to proactively reach out to members via chat and guide them past points of abandonment.

Challenge

Solution

Challenge

Solution

Bringing Fast Digital Service to Members Everywhere

Alliant Credit Union is one of the largest fully digital credit unions in the United States. But it faced a gap between its digital service and digital support. While Alliant gives members the freedom to manage their financial lives online, its support system required members to break that digital journey, pick up the phone, and call Aliant’s member care team for help.

Recognizing that isolated tools were holding it back from the fast, convenient experience members expected, Alliant needed a unified voice and digital solution. With Glia’s Banking AI Platform, Alliant fundamentally changed how a nationwide digital credit union serves its members—and they did it in just eight weeks.

Challenge: Long Handle Times for Simple Inquiries

Prior to implementing Glia, member service requests that could have been solved with a simple chat turned into complex, lengthy over-the-phone interactions. The lack of cohesive digital and voice support led to multiple challenges:

Fragmented Experiences. When members needed assistance, they often had to leave the digital banking experience and call the member care team, adding extra effort and complexity to simple inquiries.
Long Wait Times. Without a chat tool allowing Alliant’s team to handle multiple inquiries simultaneously, frontline agents could only serve one member at a time, leading to high call volume and long waits.
Limited Scalability. Alliant’s outdated support solution held it back from future growth, innovation, and scalability.

Solution: Unifying Voice and Digital Support With the Glia Banking AI Platform

Alliant needed a partner with proven success in the highly regulated financial industry. Glia gave the credit union the confidence to move quickly without compromising the quality or security of the experience.

“Glia’s experience in the financial services and credit union space was a key factor,” said Stefani Foss, Chief Operations Officer for Alliant Credit Union. “We needed a partner that understood the security, compliance, operational, and member experience expectations of a highly regulated financial institution. It was clear that Glia understood our unique challenges and needs.”

In approximately eight weeks, Alliant’s cross-functional teams across Operations, Technology, Digital, Security, and Compliance worked with Glia to move from contract signature to a production launch.

Alliant deployed a suite of voice and digital tools within the Glia Banking AI Platform.

Glia Banker gives Alliant a virtual assistant agent to help members quickly self-serve and easily transfer to a human agent when necessary.
Glia’s ChannelLess^® Architecture allows Alliant members to seamlessly transition from chat to voice without breaking the interaction journey.
Digital Chat empowers Alliant’s agents to assist members with unauthenticated actions like exploring new products and authenticated actions like completing account transfers.
AI Intercept predicts member needs based on prior interactions, enabling Glia Banker to proactively assist members before frustration leads to abandonment.
CoBrowsing allows agents to take over a member’s screen and actively guide them through complex processes, helping Alliant personalize its digital support.
Secure Conversations allow Alliant’s members to safely communicate with the credit union after business hours.
Chat-to-Voice Escalation seamlessly routes inquiries to agents without forcing members to repeat themselves.

Result: Saving 10,500+ Hours With Glia Banker and Live Digital Support

Deploying the Glia Banking AI Platform generated immediate, measurable operational improvements. By automating routine inquiries with Glia Banker and helping member care teams handle multiple chats simultaneously, Alliant provided the fast, seamless service members expected—and generated massive time savings for its frontline.

Within the first year, Alliant leveraged Glia banking AI to:

Create capacity by tracking to save 10,534 annual hours
Improve operational efficiency by empowering agents to multi-engage on over 73,369 conversations instead of handling them individually
Boost digital adoption with nearly 300,000 completed chat interactions across AI agent and live-agent channels
Preserve its human touch by successfully routing over 58,000 interactions to live agents

Outcome: Scaling for the Future in Just Eight Weeks

Unifying voice and digital interactions with the Glia Banking AI Platform has helped Alliant establish a scalable model for the future: automating routine inquiries with our virtual bot and freeing up agents to focus on members with complex needs.

“This balance between automation and human support is critical to Alliant’s strategy,” Foss said. “Our goal was not to remove people from the experience. It was to use digital engagement to help members get answers faster while allowing employees to focus on more complex and valuable interactions.”

Alliant has also leveraged Glia’s analytics and insights capabilities to improve its experience. Alliant now has visibility into member journeys, interaction trends, digital performance, and escalation patterns, helping leaders decide what interactions to automate and which to assist with human agents.

“With these insights, Alliant can continuously improve the member experience, refine digital support journeys, and make more informed operational decisions as we expand the use of Glia across additional teams,” Foss said.

Alliant is already extending Glia to the new account and loan teams, helping drive deposit and loan growth. By proactively offering real-time assistance during loan applications and account opening, Alliant is reducing abandonment and increasing conversions.

“Our New Member Accounts and Loan Consultant teams have started using Glia to provide chat support directly within the new member application and loan application,” Foss said. “We can now step in at critical moments of the member journey to keep loan applicants and prospective members moving forward.”

Throughout the relationship, Alliant has been impressed at Glia’s ability to transform the credit union’s digital service model in a condensed timeframe.

“Glia’s speed was especially meaningful given the scope of the transformation,” said Foss. “Alliant did not simply add a new channel. We moved from a siloed support model to a unified banking AI platform helping us serve members digitally at scale.”