Members have a need for a faster and easier way to communicate with loan officers about the status of their loan application. In today’s world, you can chat with a representative about almost anything: while shopping online, asking questions about a product, checking the status of your order, etc. The theme today is instant gratification, no one wants to wait on hold to have their question heard or get the answers they need! So, what are we doing to keep up with that?

In partnership with eDOC Innovations, CU*Answers set out on a research journey to develop a product that can help our credit unions match the expectations of easy and fast communication in the marketplace, while still helping loan officers save time, and keeping personal information secure. That’s where the idea of a chat room feature was developed!

The idea is that a loan officer will initiate a text to the member’s phone inviting them into a chat room to talk about their loan application. After entering a passcode for verification, they will be able to exchange information, have ongoing conversations, and securely send any documentation needed to approve and close the loan. Any of the documents that the member sends in the chat plus all the chat history, will be saved to the package associated with that loan.

This chat room is something we would build in the loan application workflow first and then explore what it would look like to put it in other areas like Phone Operator, member service tools, and even collections tools later on. This is currently in the research phase with eDOC Innovations so stay tuned for more!

Here is the slide excerpt from Leadership

The chef for this recipe is Ashley Melder.