Heritage Federal Credit Union: Turning the Contact Center into a Growth Engine

Life Beyond KPIs: How Heritage Drives Growth From the Contact Center

For many contact center leaders, everything comes down to KPIs: shortening handle times, driving down wait times, hitting service level goals, and more. But with all the focus on numbers, it’s easy to lose sight of one big question: Why? In other words, what would you do if you no longer struggled to meet every KPI? 

That’s exactly the question Heritage Federal Credit Union began asking after switching to Glia. Suddenly enjoying an abundance of time, budget, and workforce flexibility thanks to Voice AI efficiency, Heritage could finally stop focusing on numbers and start thinking about the big picture. What the credit union did next shows how AI's value goes far beyond helping leaders hit KPIs.

Heritage used AI efficiency to drive revenue from its contact center, skyrocketing loan growth to 151%+% of its annual goal—even after one loan officer left the team. The success has encouraged Heritage to plan a bold vision for virtual expansion, while also giving agents time back to strengthen relationships and build lasting loyalty with members.

Heritage’s story redefines what’s possible for credit unions: turning contact centers from cost centers into growth engines. Here's how Heritage made it happen—and what it means for you.

Challenge: Scaling Without Hiring

Before partnering with Glia, Heritage faced an all-too-familiar question: How could it meet growing volume today while setting itself up to scale tomorrow—without the unsustainable burden of constantly adding headcount?

At the root of Heritage’s challenge was a contact center held back by a legacy CCaaS system. Heritage’s outdated "call in and talk" model, supported by an aging IVR system, frustrated members with a complicated menu tree and limited navigation options. A lack of self-service restricted inquiries to normal business hours, flooding agents with unmanageable volume. 

The overloaded call queue, inefficient routing, and lack of modern tools left agents overwhelmed and constantly on the defensive. Disconnected platforms also meant agents had to look for member information in multiple places, forcing them to toggle between systems rather than focus solely on the customers.

For Tim Coudret, Director of Member Experience at Heritage, a tech overhaul was a clear necessity. “Without features like AI-driven routing, real-time chat, or CoBrowsing, our staff faced limitations in resolving complex issues promptly,” Coudret said. “This led to longer call times, increased operational inefficiencies, and a higher workload for our team.”

While these issues forced immediate headaches in the contact center, they also presented long-term obstacles to growth. With its team permanently in reactive mode, Heritage spent its energy fighting fires within its contact center rather than driving revenue, strengthening member relationships, and setting itself up to scale.

Solution: A No-Brainer In Glia

To provide better service today and grow tomorrow, Heritage looked for tech that would let its agents work smarter, not harder, so they could offer better service to more members—without more hiring. When the credit union talked to Glia, it knew it had found the right partner right away. 

"It was a no-brainer choice for us," says Coudret. "Once we met with Glia the first time, we frankly didn't really look anywhere else."

In the Glia Platform, Heritage saw a comprehensive solution that checked every box—including a proven, pre-built integration with Heritage’s existing Alkami banking platform and CRM, allowing for a fast implementation without extensive IT overhauls. 

The cornerstone of Heritage’s plan was Voice AI, led by the Glia Virtual Assistant (GVA), which the credit union nicknamed “Heidi”. Built specifically for banking and pre-trained on over 900 member journeys, Heidi would relieve agents by greeting every member, resolving routine inquiries, and routing the rest to agents with full context using AI Transfer Summaries—no more complex IVR menus, limited options, or cold transfers. 

Heritage also decided to implement Glia Digital tools right into the Alkami platform. Live Chat and SMS would let agents meet members in their preferred channels, while CoBrowsing lets them take over a members’ screen to collaboratively guide them past roadblocks, like document uploads during loan applications. 

‍Agent AI tools empowered agents to deliver faster, more personalized member care across voice and digital interactions. Agent Assist GVA suggests real-time response suggestions during member interactions, while AI Autocomplete predicts text when agents are typing. Live Transcribe writes out call interactions in real-time so agents never lose context, clearing the way for Interaction Wrap-Up to automate post-call record-keeping for agents. 

For leaders, Manager AI and Exec AI opened up groundbreaking insights for decision-making. Insights Analyst lets leaders quickly identify service bottlenecks while Forecast Analyst helps them meet staffing and hiring goals—simply asking questions in natural language. 

Impressively, Glia worked closely with the Heritage team to implement all these changes in just four months. In that span, the credit union completely revamped its voice strategy by launching Glia Voice and adding the GVA to its mobile, online banking, phone, and public website functions. 

“Any one of those features could have taken four months with a typical legacy vendor,” Coudret says. “The Glia team helped us execute on an aggressive timeline and we really felt like they were an extension of the Heritage team.”

With its new partner already exceeding expectations, Heritage rolled out its new technology—and quickly raised the bar even higher.

Results: Turning AI Efficiency into ROI

Conventional wisdom says that handling more calls requires adding agents. Voice AI says otherwise—and Heritage has the results to prove it. 

With AI answering calls and automating routine inquiries, Heritage doubled its service capacity with a 20% reduction in monthly labor requirements—no extra hiring required. The newfound efficiency let Heritage handle twice the volume while actually increasing its service level by 16%. 

As a result, Heritage is already planning virtual expansion into new markets, like Kentucky, without needing to expand headcount. 

Driving the efficiency gain is AI, which now elevates 90% of interactions. Heidi fully resolves 34% of interactions without agents, meaning one in three members get immediate answers without ever waiting in the queue. For the remaining 56% of AI-enhanced inquiries, Voice AI quickly identifies member needs, preps agents with interaction summaries, and provides real-time coaching for fast, expert assistance. 

As for KPIs, Heritage hit all those, too—from an 18% decrease in average handle time to a 13% increase in total calls answered. But what Heritage did next is even more impressive. 

Freed up from a barrage of low-value inquiries, Heritage had the opportunity to take a proactive approach to loan-growth. The results are staggering:

• For three years prior to Glia, Heritage hit around 75% of its annual virtual lending goals
• In the first year of switching to Glia, Heritage shattered its virtual lending target with 122% of its annual goal—and expects to exceed 160% of that goal this year.

That adds up to a 2.5x increase in loan growth after switching to Glia. To pull it off, Heritage relied on a powerful formula: Let AI handle the easy stuff, then put humans in a position where they can drive the most impact.

Outcome: From Contact Center to Growth Center

Tim Coudret sums up Heritage’s strategy: “It’s about using AI to give your people more time to do what’s best for the business.” While Heritage could have pocketed its AI cost savings, it decided that reinvesting in agents was the best move for the business. The results paid off. By upskilling its staff, Heritage has driven staggering growth, deepened member relationships, and completely transformed its expansion strategy. 

Powering Up Agents, Revving Up Business

With Voice AI freeing up agents from low-volume inquiries, Heritage shifted its agents from defense to offense. Simply put, Heritage has empowered agents to now proactively generate business instead of just picking up the phone. It’s this evolution that led to Heritage’s remarkable loan growth—and is changing the way the credit union thinks about its future. 

Prior to Glia, members needed to visit an in-person branch for revenue-generating activities like applying for a loan. Now, with the extra time and better tech, contact center agents work closely with the Heritage loan team to virtually assist members with these actions. That’s where upskilling comes in. 

“Rather than staff down, we've expanded our capabilities within our team,” said Adam Goetzke, Director of Customer Experience. “In the call center, we’re working on training agents to handle account opening, CDs, and loan opportunities, so we can have those conversations ourselves instead of transferring them to a specialist.”

Heritage is also training agents to recognize cross-selling and up-selling opportunities. Now, agents can make data-driven suggestions on new products during routine member interactions rather than simply resolving the inquiry. When agents have extra time, they can even proactively reach out to prospects and members who are strong candidates for certain products. 

It’s all added up to enormous productivity for both the contact center team and loan specialists. Case in point: Heritage achieved its 2.5x increase in loan growth despite a 25% reduction in its loan team due to attrition.

That doesn’t mean that Heritage is looking to downsize staff, though. While AI relieves the pressure of immediately backfilling positions, Goetzke knows that his people are essential to turning efficiency into growth across the business. 

“We're shifting our people from account management functions to revenue-generating functions,” said Goetzke. “We’re doing things we could have never done before—like taking on loan applications and targeted engagements—had we not freed up time by turning mundane tasks over to AI." 

As a result, Heritage has also raised the bar for its contact center hiring strategy. Rather than bringing in entry-level agents to handle simple, repetitive inquiries, the credit union is focused on adding staff with the skills to build deep, lasting relationships—paving the way for Heritage to deliver outstanding member service far into the future.

Expanding Virtually Anywhere, From One Centralized Location

With its contact center turned into a growth hub, Heritage has completely reimagined its vision of the future. Up next: Virtual expansion. 

Encouraged by its newfound ability to generate revenue from one centralized contact center, Heritage can now take a groundbreaking approach to growth. The credit union will use brick and mortar locations as headquarters, then expand coverage into the surrounding areas by deploying virtual branches and interactive teller machines (ITMs), manned on the back end by staff using the Glia Platform. 

“We’re now virtually handling activities that once were restricted to the branch,” said Goetzke. “The Glia Platform makes it easy for the contact center team to transfer callers to loan officers, who can then talk to members on the phone, use video chat, CoBrowsing, and more.” 

As a result, Heritage can increase its geographic footprint without overextending on real estate and headcount costs—all while driving revenue and providing exceptional member service. 

This innovative strategy is a departure from business as usual for a credit union that first opened its doors more than 60 years ago. But after witnessing the credit union’s success with Glia, Heritage’s leadership team is fully confident in the expansion plan. 

“Our internal conversation wasn’t, ‘Is this the right move?’” said Goetzke, who has pioneered the idea of virtual expansion at Heritage. “Leaders were excited right away. They’re seeing the results that Glia is providing, they’re bought in, and they’re excited about the expansion we’re committing to.”

Creating Long-Term Value With Longer Conversations

While Heritage looks ahead to new expansion and revenue-growth possibilities offered by AI, it hasn’t lost sight of its primary focus: its members. Now, with Voice AI shielding agents from repeated questions about account balances and transfer requests, the Heritage team can strengthen member relationships like never before. 

“We now really have the ability to focus on the conversations that matter—the complicated things,” said Coudret. “Instead of just rushing to the next call, we’ve started asking a new question: How can we spend even more time with members to truly take care of them?”

With its newfound abundance of time and resources, Heritage is honing in on one of its core missions: fostering financial literacy for members. This newfound capacity is the key to achieving a dream for many credit unions—going beyond being a transactional service provider to become a trusted financial advisor.

When agents help members make smarter decisions, everyone wins. Members take control of their financial situations while Heritage deepens member trust and fosters lifetime loyalty. For Heritage’s agents, more time with members adds meaning to their work, too.

"Our team is very member-centric, and they love to connect and help our people,” said Coudret. Giving them a tool like Glia has really been revolutionary. Now they can do more for our members and really meet people where they're at, helping to simplify banking and improve lives."

What’s Next: Changing The Future of Credit Unions, From The Contact Center

From driving revenue to deepening member relationships to reimagining its expansion strategy, each of Heritage’s new initiatives is made possible by one principle: When agents are free to focus on high-value work, they create impact across the whole business. 

For Coudret, it all reinforces his thesis. The value of AI goes far beyond helping leaders meet their KPIs—especially when you work with Glia.

“Having been in the call center since I was 16, this stuff is mind-blowing,” Coudret said. “I don’t understand why anybody wouldn’t be on Glia’s platform. If they look at your platform and don’t decide to move forward, they’re fundamentally thinking about their contact center in the wrong way.” 

Goetzke agrees. With Glia freeing the contact center from its traditional service role, he sees a bold new future opening up for Heritage—and for credit unions everywhere.

“Glia gives you the freedom and the flexibility to unlearn what you've learned from contact centers over the years and create a new process—one built for growth, not just survival,” Goetzke says. “You can really make a meaningful impact in ways that contact centers haven't been able to do before.”

How Will You Use Your AI Efficiency Gains?

As Heritage Federal Credit Union proves, the power of AI goes far beyond hitting your KPIs. But Heritage’s story raises one additional question: What will AI make possible for your financial institution?

We’re ready to help you find out. Reach out today to find out what you can do with Glia.

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