Financial institutions should expect to fail when exploring new technologies, Ami Iceman Hauter, chief research and digital experience officer at Michigan State University Federal Credit Union, said at the recent Bank Automation Summit U.S. 2024 in Nashville, Tenn.  

“We’re trying things, we’re not going to be afraid to fail,” she said, noting that the only reason she can explore new projects and innovate is because the credit union — including executive leadership — agrees, from an innovation standpoint.

It’s a problem if the leadership and executive team do not buy into the innovation or potential of failure, Iceman Hauter said. She spends “a majority” of her time trying to make her colleagues comfortable with so-called “failure,” she said. 

Failing first 

The $7.69 billion MSUFCU in 2019 launched a chatbot and handled the rollout as a technology project, she said. The team determined how it would run, the system details and security measures. 

However, the frontline teams that would eventually answer the questions did not know those details and, due to that missing piece, adoption was low, Iceman Hauter said. 

She went back to the drawing board and relaunched the chatbot in 2020, but with frontline employees at the helm of the project. The second launch saw stronger adoption because the frontline employees knew how to answer the questions members were asking.  

Opportunity for growth 

The chatbot has both reduced the number of mundane tasks for employees and improved customer resolution time, and has allowed employees to take on new tasks within the institution, Iceman Hauter said.  

Since the bot’s 2020 relaunch, Hauter has retrained six of the credit union’s contact center team members to help run its AI team; while they don’t yet know the technology, they already know how to answer member questions.  

The ability to move employees into new roles internally is a success that only emerged because of the first bot’s failure, she said. With its strategic relaunch, MSFCU employees are now prepared to take on AI innovation with a completely new approach.  

More news from Bank Automation Summit US 2024 is available here.