Busey Bank: Adding 30,000 Customers Without Adding Headcount

Growth, Experience, and Efficiency: Busey Gets It All

Imagine adding 30,000 new customers overnight. The growth would be great for your business, but what would it mean for your employee and customer experience? Maintaining standout service would require onboarding and training an entirely new team—then preaching patience to customers and staff while everyone gets up to speed. 

When Busey Bank found itself in that exact situation while acquiring a $7B bank, it knew there had to be a better way. That’s when the bank turned to Voice AI—and expanded its customer base by 25% without increasing headcount.

For Busey, the big-picture payoff goes beyond successfully navigating the merger. The bank actually improved its service, positioned itself for future scalability, and delivered on its people-first promise by freeing up frontline staff for high-value roles. 

Here’s how Busey succeeded—and what it means for you. 

Challenge: Changing the Customer Service Conversation

Responsible and sustainable growth has been top-of-mind for Busey Bank throughout its 157-year history. But when Busey acquired a local $1B bank in 2021, its leaders realized they were at a service-culture crossroads. 

The bank had made huge strides in its digital customer service, but its new customers still preferred picking up the phone when they needed help. Many of their questions revolved around balance inquiries, account transfers, lost account numbers, and more.

Busey’s leaders knew that simply adding advisors to its call center would be an inefficient solution—not to mention untenable for long-term growth. That’s when Busey began asking an even bigger question: What if the best customer service doesn’t always require human support?

“We realized in some cases we were overserving,” said Caitlin Drake, SVP and Director of CX & Support at Busey. “Forcing customers to wait to talk to an Advisor, when we could provide a highly effective human-free experience, wasn’t good service—and it didn’t make much business sense.”

Busey saw a better way forward: Using AI to automate high-volume, low-stakes interactions while saving human support for the moments that matter. 

Solution: Answering the Call With Voice AI 

Fast-forward to 2024. Preparing for an even bigger M&A deal, Busey was excited to execute on lessons from the past. This time, the bank would be ready to handle high call volume and actually improve service without extra headcount.

Busey just needed the right tech. Fortunately, it knew exactly who to turn to. 

“A Partner As Committed As We Are”

After successfully deploying the digital Glia Virtual Assistant (GVA) in 2024, Busey had found a partner it could grow with. Glia’s focus on banks and credit unions made it uniquely positioned to meet Busey’s needs, while Glia’s pre-existing integrations with vendors like Q2 allowed for fast, seamless implementation—no costly, time-consuming rip and replace. 

Busey’s leaders also appreciated Glia’s commitment to understanding the bank’s specific goals rather than overselling—and Glia’s willingness to meet a rapidly approaching implementation deadline. 

“We had an impossibly tight timeline and a very complex project plan,” Drake said. “Our Glia partners rallied the troops and pulled together an aggressive but attainable timeline.” 

With the merger date growing closer, Busey and Glia laid out three steps:

• Replace Busey’s 1.800 IVR experience with Glia Voice. No more antiquated, inflexible touch-tone menus. Busey would use Glia Voice AI to predict customer needs, personalize greetings accordingly, and route them to the right agent, right away. 
• Deploy Glia’s Voice AI Agent right within Busey’s Q2 Platform. Voice AI would greet every caller, automate simple inquiries, and pass the rest to Advisors with full context—letting Advisors offer immediate help instead of asking questions customers had already answered.
• Use AI to help Advisors offer faster, more personalized service. Glia Transfer Summary would ensure Advisors understood customer needs before even picking up the phone, while Interaction Wrap-Up would automate post-call record-keeping, helping Advisors quickly move to the next caller instead of manually entering notes. 

As the M&A deal approached, Busey was confident Glia would deliver within the tight timeline. “Going with Glia came down to choosing a superior product with a far superior project team that cares as deeply as we do,” Drake said. “We finally had a partner as committed as we are!”

Results: Higher Call Volume, Upskilled Advisors, No Extra Hiring

Busey’s acquisition of a $7B bank increased its customer base by 25%. With the help of Glia Voice AI, Busey expected its Advisors would only see about a 10% increase in calls. In reality, Glia Voice AI doubled Busey’s efficiency target, with Advisors handling just 5% of additional calls despite the increase in customers. 

Put simply, Glia Voice AI helped Busey add 30,000 customers with 8,000 new consumer digital users while taking on only 75 additional tickets per day.

Busey’s game-changing efficiency gains were powered in large part by two Glia Voice AI features:

• Glia Virtual Assistants handled 61.5% of Busey’s calls, freeing up Advisors for high-value interactions
• Interaction Wrap-Up slashed post-call survey time by 50%, giving Advisors valuable time back to focus on customer service instead of entering notes. 

The efficiency gains translated to better numbers across the board. Busey’ Customer Care team exceeded its post-conversion performance targets for service levels, average wait time, and abandonment rate—while 80% of Busey’s frontline Advisors said Glia was superior to previous platforms they’d used. 

Busey quickly put these efficiency gains to work, designating its main call center as the overflow call center for 14 additional banking centers. Even more impressively, Busey used Voice AI to handle more volume with less staff, reallocating frontline employees to more high-value roles. 

“We have already re-purposed two Customer Care Advisor roles to fill critical staffing needs without the cost of added headcount,” Drake said. “With the help of Glia, we are supporting more call volume than ever with fewer associates—while exceeding all performance targets.”

Outcome: Set to Scale With A Future-Forward Frontline

Busey is thrilled by the immediate efficiency gains they’ve unlocked with Glia Voice AI. But leaders are just as excited about using AI efficiency to drive far-ranging impact across the business—now and into the future.

Turning AI Efficiency Into Career Growth

With Voice AI absorbing so many calls, Busey’s Advisors are free to focus on higher-value work. Busey’s leaders are taking full advantage of the opportunity to reinvest in their team.

“Our view has always been to put people in their highest and best use,” Drake said. “The more interactions we can handle without human support, the more we can repurpose employees for higher impact.”

Thanks to Voice AI handling high-volume, low-impact inquiries, Busey has promoted two Advisors from answering phones to strategic support and research roles. Going forward, Drake hopes Voice AI will free up even more Advisors for career advancement in areas like treasury and commercial—a win-win for Busey and its associates.

“We can now let attrition take its course in the call center while we continue upskilling our team,” Drake said. “By investing in technology, we can put our people on a career path that opens more doors for them and allows them to serve the company at a higher level.”

At the same time, Busey’s frontline team loves how the Glia platform has made their jobs better, too. 

“Your interface is so much better than our previous platform—just head and shoulders above what we had and what we replaced,” Drake said. “We’ve received great feedback from the team.”

Better Routing, Happier Customers

Busey employees aren’t the only ones benefitting from new Glia tech. Voice AI is elevating the experience for Busey’s customers right now, powering everything from fewer transfers to faster resolutions. 

“Before Glia, customers were often passed directly to Customer Care only to be routed elsewhere,” Drake said. “Glia Virtual Assistants help us weed-out informational-only calls and provide intelligent routing to the right human when needed.”

The better routing leads to speedy, stress-free resolutions—a critical imperative as Busey continues to grow its customer base without compromising service quality. 

“We want our human bodies in the call center to answer those complex questions,” Drake said. “The goal is not to eradicate humans from the call center, but to use them intentionally where they add the most value.”

AI For Record-Keeping, Quality Control, and Compliance

Busey’s leaders are finding their own value in Glia AI. Across the business, they’re getting better data, faster and easier than ever. Leading the way is Glia’s AI Benchmarks, which lets Busey track its AI performance against peers and industry standards.

“Reporting is a lot cleaner and easier than we’ve had with previous partners,” said Shane Stonecipher, VP of Customer Care. “Data is very easy to find.”

Busey’s leaders translate AI efficiency into a host of uses—from improving agent coaching and ensuring compliance to identifying common customer pain points. 

While Advisors use Interaction Wrap-Up to speed up post-call work, Busey’s managers use it to gain accurate, comprehensive interaction insights. 

“Previously, our Advisors had to hand-type their own synopsis of each call,” Drake said. “As you can imagine, accounts varied wildly—some Advisors wrote too much and others not enough, some skimmed over the actual issue and others provided a recap of every discussion point.”

Now, managers draw from comprehensive, concise interaction summaries written by AI—resulting in standardized summaries and objective data, regardless of the agent. 

Managers can also now pinpoint service issues easier and faster than ever. They simply turn to Glia’s AI analysts and ask questions in natural language, then receive instant answers. The on-demand insights are critical as Busey works hard to ensure a smooth customer experience following the recent merger. 

“We’ve really leaned into Quality Analyst, especially post-conversion,” Stonecipher said. “Now, we can plug in any question to identify why customers are calling so we can triage and make smart decisions.” 

Busey’s Risk and Compliance Team have enjoyed similar benefits from Glia’s AI analysts. By asking questions to gain immediate insights about interactions, the team has a powerful new tool to augment its normal quality assurance process. 

Drake sees enormous value in these cross-functional uses of AI. “As a financial institution, we obviously have a lot of regulations to follow,” Drake said. “By making us efficient and compliant at the same time, AI is a check in every box.” 

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Busey is excited about using AI to improve coaching and quality assurance far into the future. But Drake is also reassured by having a partner that has been deeply invested in its long-term growth from the very beginning.

“Our implementation experience has been stellar, largely due to our incredible Glia project team,” Drake said. “They were highly collaborative, sharing our core belief around making meetings count—meaning that if we're going to invest our time, it has to add value.”

To unlock that value, Busey has taken full advantage of Glia’s Premier Success Package. The support package gives Busey a dedicated Technical Account Manager (TAM), technical health review, and key event management, along with signature Glia elements like personalized success plans, ongoing program reviews, and scheduled support calls. Drake appreciates Glia’s direct, clear, and outcome-based approach throughout the entire process.

“Glia brought clarity to what we needed to do, why it mattered and how to do it efficiently,” said Drake. “They pushed back when we drifted into scope creep and provided thoughtful considerations on how to best solve challenges. Additionally, our Glia account team armed us with a powerful internal selling story, keeping folks focused on the long-term gain.”

Next Steps: Authentication, Salesforce Integration, and AI for Advisors

Encouraged by the success of its Glia Voice deployment, Busey is ready to write the next chapter in its AI efficiency story. First up: Automating even more inquiries by adding Authentication via its Glia Virtual Assistant. 

With Authentication, Busey’s customers can use voice to self-serve for tasks like balance inquiries—no need to go online or enroll in Busey’s telephone banking service. As balance inquiries and transfer requests currently comprise more than 19% of Busey’s human-assisted calls, automating these interactions will free up more staff for higher-value work. 

Working alongside its Glia Technical Account Management (TAM) team, Busey has identified additional next steps, including adding:

• Glia’s pre-built Salesforce integration, embedded straight to the Glia Unified Agent Desktop so Advisors can easily access customer information without toggling screens and platforms
• Glia Agent Assist GVA, which surfaces relevant documents to Advisors in real time so they can spend less time gathering information and more time helping customers
• Additional Agent AI and Manager AI tools that improve coaching, customer service, and Advisor expertise

Through it all, Busey has maintained its growth mindset while doubling down on its most important asset: its people.

“AI opens doors to doing more things faster, and at a higher level,” Drake said. “We want to stay focused on using AI as a tool—a means to an end—to improve the experience across all key stakeholder segments.”

How Will You Use Your AI Efficiency Gains?

Busey Bank’s success with Voice AI proves that adding headcount is no longer a necessity to growing your business. Even more importantly, it’s a testament to how banks can use AI efficiency to make life better for employees and customers while setting itself up to scale for the future.

Busey’s story, however, does raise one additional question: What will AI make possible for your financial institution?

It’s time to find out. Reach out today to learn how Glia helps you turn AI efficiency into powerful impact across your organization.

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