RightNow – On Demand CRM Software

World’s Largest Credit Union Uses RightNow To Support America’s Military Families

Goals

• Meet the financial needs of its members.
• Automatically answer 30 percent of all e-messages within 12 months of deployment
• Respond to messages as quickly as possible with at least 80 percent of messages being handled within 24 hours

Achievements

• 35,000 messages handled via secured e-messaging channel every month
• Nearly 50 percent of e-messages answered automatically and immediately
• 18-hour average turnaround time

When you’re a marine in a foxhole in Iraq, the last thing you want to worry about is your car payment back home. That’s why Navy Federal Credit Union does all it can to provide the men and women of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps and their families with exceptional member service—whatever their needs are and wherever they may be.

RightNow is playing a crucial role in delivering that exceptional level of service. Navy Federal has dramatically improved its responsiveness to the e-messages it receives from its members around the world through the RightNow CRM software system—as well as the efficiency with which it handles those e-messages. And, in doing so, it has set the stage for further enhancements to its member experience.

In fact, within a single day of implementing RightNow’s SmartAssistant™ feature—which scans the incoming inquiry and offers suggested answers—Navy Federal experienced a 15 percent rate of questions avoided. And the benefits didn’t stop there; Navy Federal is now answering almost 50 percent of the 35,000 e-messages it receives every month immediately without any human intervention.

It has also brought its turnaround time for e-messages down from three days or more to a mere 18 hours.

“RightNow has had a tremendous positive impact on the way we do business,” says Johnna Cooper, manager of Navy Federal’s correspondence branch. “Members are now telling us how happy they are with our ability to provide them with fast, clear answers to their questions using what is sometimes the only communication channel available to them.”

Making E-messaging Work

E-messaging—messages sent by members to Navy Federal via a web form on the credit union’s secured website—is a particularly important communication channel for two reasons. First, military personnel in the field or on a ship often don’t have access to a phone. But they do have laptops or PDAs that they can use to go online. Second, to protect its members’ financial data, Navy Federal does not accept questions via regular, unsecured e-mail. So, if members want to ask a question online, they have to log into the secure area of Navy Federal’s website and submit it via the web form provided there.

Navy Federal’s highly efficient, RightNow-enabled e-messaging system works by using a combination of a strong knowledge foundation, intelligent routing, and integration with their systems. Because members are already logged into the site at this point, their identity can be used to retrieve account data from Navy Federal’s mainframe. This data is used to present the member with a “pick list” of their active accounts as well as two generic options in case the member has a general question. Once they select the product they want to ask about, they are given a corresponding “pick list” of categories that describe their question. For example, if the product they are asking about is a mortgage, they can choose from categories such as escrow, refinance, or late payment.

When the customer clicks the “continue” button, the web form with its three identifying fields and the question itself is passed to RightNow's CRM software system. Based on the content of the product, category and question fields, RightNow automatically suggests a few answers from Navy Federal’s 300+-answer knowledge foundation. Amazingly nearly 50 percent of the time, this meets the member’s need immediately—without requiring anyone in the Correspondence Branch to do anything.

If the initial answers presented by RightNow don’t do the trick, the question is then routed to an appropriate Navy Federal staffer. In some cases, this will be one of the 11 individuals in the Correspondence Branch who are assigned to answering e-messages. In other cases, RightNow’s CRM software system automatically routes the inquiry to one of the 300+ subject-matter experts from one of 70 credit union departments.

Once a question is routed to the proper queue, RightNow again accelerates and simplifies the response with an internal knowledge foundation of approximately 1,500 answers that can be used to quickly craft a clear, accurate response.

“RightNow’s artificial intelligence has proven to be very effective in both parsing out the content of our members’ questions to suggest answers and in routing messages to appropriate business unit,” says Cooper. “And the system continues to work better the more we use it and refine the parameters.”

High Impact For Customers And The Contact Center

The RightNow-based CRM software system has made a significant impact on both Navy Federal’s members and its employees. First and foremost, members are now getting immediate answers to their questions online more than 16,000 times every month. That can mean a lot to an active-duty serviceman or servicewoman who has more important things to do than worry about financial paperwork.

Second, by cutting the e-messaging workload nearly in half and providing a robust knowledge foundation, the system enables Navy Federal’s staff to work the remaining questions very quickly. Questions are actually turned around by the Correspondence Branch in about three hours. The total turnaround time of 18 hours includes the time it takes for subject-matter experts in the credit union’s various departments to research and address more complex issues.

A third benefit is increased productivity. Before RightNow, the 11 people who handle e-messages in the Correspondence Branch had their hands full just routing and replying to questions. They would even ask others to jump in and help them when things got rough. Now, just the opposite is true. Even with the greatly improved service levels, members of the 11-person team are occasionally free to help other areas of the credit union.

These improvements in performance and efficiency allow Navy Federal to drive more of its member service traffic through the e-messaging channel—something it could never do when it was taking three days or more to reply to messages.

Navy Federal is now working to post an expanded knowledge foundation on the public side of its website to provide members and potential members with the ability to search for information quickly and easily. After that, it will begin leveraging its full RightNow knowledge foundation in its call center to improve productivity there and ensure the consistency of answers across all of its main communication channels.

Cooper notes that in addition to providing her company with great technology, RightNow has been a great business partner. “The match between our respective cultures was very important to us during the selection process.” she says. “It was clear to us that RightNow is as concerned about our success as we are. RightNow’s commitment to our success and member satisfaction continues to this day—which isn’t always what happens with a vendor after you sign the contract.”

She adds that, for Navy Federal, delivering a great member experience isn’t just a wise business strategy. It’s a matter of mission. “Many of our employees, including upper management, are former Navy themselves, so they know how important it is to go the extra mile for someone who is putting his or her life on the line for their country,” she says. “We take special pride in the quality of the job we do for these very special men and women, and we plan on keeping them and their families as members for life.”

Navy Federal Credit Union Support Site | Navy Federal Credit Union Homepage

About Navy Federal Credit Union

Navy Federal is the largest credit union in the world with $29 billion in assets and 2.9 million members. Navy Federal has 124 branch offices and 331 proprietary ATMs located worldwide. The credit union serves all the Department of the Navy (DON) military and civilian personnel, contractors who provide service to or work for the DON on a regular basis, and their families.