PegaWorld 2025: Building Next-gen Member Service: Streamlining DCU Interactions with Customers

PegaWorld 2025: Building Next-Gen Member Service - Streamlining DCU Interactions

All right. Thank you. So as Michael mentioned, my name is Matt Lawler. I'm the director of engineering at DCU. For those that don't know, DCU is a credit union in Massachusetts that serves members nationwide.

Um, when I think of employees at a credit union, I tend to to think of this image. You know, this is a clearly frustrated individual that has to deal with legacy tools and process, operates in a heavily regulated environment. Slow moving environment.

Meant in eight years ago 2017, DCU was no different. We had hundreds of disconnected tools and systems, heavily manual process, manual data entry, um, tickets being passed across different departments and teams, um, and all in an environment that was built to support approximately 500,000 members.

Um, at the same time, we had a goal to double our membership. We wanted to get up over a million members. Um, and, you know, we quickly realized that the tools and the process and the systems we had in place wouldn't help us scale to that, to that level. Um, so we thought we'd look to to modern technology to see if that could give us the kind of the boost up, um, and kind of the team that was impacted by that inefficiency the most was our contact center and branch staff.

Um, These are the folks that are interacting with our members on a daily basis. And kind of in short, we were we were asking those agents to deliver a high touch experience with low context tools. We weren't giving them any full picture of the member in terms of data. We gave them no real scripting or guidance. You know, when a when a member came in for a particular transaction, you know, we weren't helping the agent, you know, serve the member.

Um, we didn't really give them a lot of self-service options. So if they need to interact with a different department, it was literally a ticket that had to go into a queue and they had to wait. So that led to a long turnaround times for for member requests. And just overall not a great experience to to work in. And obviously not a great experience to bank in.

So the outcome that we were trying to drive, um, kind of in this initial phase was we wanted to empower our people to know the member, not just service a ticket not just to service a transaction, a request. Um, we really wanted them to know who they were talking to in a branch or in the contact center.

Um, kind of. In addition to that, as our membership grew, we didn't want to have to add tons of headcount to keep up with that growth. Um, you know, we again, we wanted to empower those agents with a complete member profile. What products do they use? How often do they call in all that type of information that will help you really understand who you're talking to?

Um, we wanted to create consistency in that service. Right. So again, those workflows really help kind of build that consistency for the member. Um, it actually gives confidence for the member, but also for the agent that's helping them. Um, and we'd also want to explore personalization. Um, so if I'm calling in to, to to ask about a loan, you know, what are my options? What would I care about? Right. So using data to help personalize offers that we would make to a member and just in general become a more modern, attractive place to work. These are tools that people use day in and day out. They have to get trained on them. They have to understand how they work. So if they're, you know, disconnected and not easy to use, it's just not not a place I'd want to work or that most people would want to work.

All right. So kind of know the vision, the path we're trying to go down kind of hit a fork in the road. Um, kind of that traditional. Do we build on top of the tools and the platforms that we have today, or do we go out and buy a solution? Um, clearly by this picture, there's some bias. The build the build lane looks pretty ominous.

Um, but I'm an engineer. Um, so I actually kind of default to a build mentality. I want to build, you know, the next cool feature, I want to I want to integrate systems. Right. So I think in it and in engineering, we tend to kind of favor that approach. But in this particular case, when we're talking about things like a CRM or case management or workflow and automation, it doesn't necessarily make sense to to spend a lot of development time in those particular areas, right? We'd spend a lot of time just kind of doing core, you know, basic things that we could just go by and instead of, you know, spending that time improving the member experience would be, you know, upgrading, upgrading integrations, maintaining and scaling systems. It just really wouldn't be a good use of our time.

Um, the other option would be to go out and find a platform, right, that has those capabilities kind of baked in right out of the box, right. Built in CRM case management, easy to easy to generate workflows, configurable scripting, robotics automation. Right. So we went out we looked at the at the available options at the time, and we chose Pega.

So clearly we're at PegaWorld. So we're talking about Pega here. Um, we felt that it had that base functionality that really would enable us to kind of build on top of it. So still kind of satisfy our desires as engineers and as builders to, to customize and extend solutions to fit what we're doing, trying to do as a credit union. Um, but again, it has that base, that base platform that we don't have to really worry about.

Um, so now we picked the, the solution. Um, now we got to actually make it happen. Right? So I kind of look at this work in two areas. Right. You have the technical work. So again, this is the stuff that we do day in and day out. Um, we're really good at working with our stakeholders, defining requirements, evaluating evaluating different options and solutions that could help satisfy those requirements. You know, integrating key systems. Building out core workflows. In this particular case, since we didn't have any Pega Pega expertise, we had to find a partner to help us roll it out. So we were really lucky to find Virtusa. They've been with us since day one for the full eight years that we've been using Pega, helping us stand it up initially, and then obviously iterate through the various things that we've built on top of it. So really key to find that that implementation partner that can help you really get the value out of the system and then kind of the hard stuff. Right.

The human work. Um, this is the stuff that, you know, as IT professionals, as engineers, we're not as good at. Um, so we had to really, you know, help the whole organization that was going to end up using Pega, um, through a change management event. Right? They'd have to learn new ways of using information and working with the system and working with workflows. They'd have to let go of, you know, hey, I've been in this role for five, ten, 15 years. This is how I've always done it. This is the form that I filled out. This is the request that I sent over to a particular team that have to let go of that and really lean into the new way of doing the doing the work.

And then I think across the board, um, anytime you're doing a change management event, there's a worry, there's anxiety. Like, is this going to fail? Right. Did we make the right choice? Is Pega the right fit for us? Is Virtusa really knowledgeable? They're going to they're going to know our business and help us implement Pega and get the most out of it. So on the engineering side is certainly a thing. And then the same thing on the on the business side, right. Is Pega really going to help me get to know the member, or am I going to be asked to do things that I'm not going to be capable of? Right. Am I going to be asked to connect with a member in a way that I'm not used to? And I might, and I may fail at right? So that's the to me, the real hard part of this whole rollout and, um, kind of how we made that particular part work, um, kind of talk about some four areas here. Right.

So I think really the most important thing here is to have strong internal champions, right? So with whatever group you're working with, whether it's the contact center, branch staff, if it's a lending department, if it's the card services team, you need to identify early on someone that you can trust and partner with someone that's going to represent the needs of the team, someone that's going to be an advocate in rooms and in conversations that you're not in, really someone to help you kind of push forward and kind of get through some of those anxieties and struggles that the team will ultimately face. Um, so I think that is probably the most important thing. Um, kind of as we've gone across the credit union and identified different groups to work with, that's been a key for us.

Um, another area is intentional communication. So, you know, Pega the first year plus really was treated as a project. We were standing up something new. So, you know, normal project communications are happening, you know, project updates, status updates, you know, monthly, quarterly, annual kind of here's here's what we did. We're on track. We're on budget. Um that's great. I think some people clearly need that information. People that are managing those teams and that in that budget, they need that information. But the users of Pega probably need a different type of communication. They need to know that they're being heard. They need to know that, you know, there's success over in this area. We're going to apply it to our team.

Um, so one of the things that we did here was we stood up an advisory group called the CRM advisory Group, CAG for short. It was really our opportunity to talk to not only those internal champions, but also the teams that kind of were behind them. Um, we hold it on a monthly basis. It's about 150 people across the credit union that joined that pretty regularly. Um, it's been a really important vehicle for us to communicate with our user base.

Um, and in this next one. Um, celebrate wins early. Another vehicle for that, right. So, um, in the CAG, we actually have the business demonstrating kind of what we've done with them, right? So whether that's, you know, with commercial loans standing up, the loan origination process, you know, they would demo that if it's card services in a disputes process, they would demo that to the larger group. Um, so that's been a big thing. It kind of acts as a snowball if people see that, you know, one group is getting a lot of value out of a particular, you know, system or project, they're going to want to be a part of it and they're going to want to, you know, um, see what they can do for their team. Um, and then in any sort of program or kind of rollout, adapting, learning. Right. And then kind of, um, you know, always kind of assessing kind of where you're at in your in your program. Um, so this has been critical for us. So we have, you know, just as part of our engineering process, we do retrospectives. You know, we try to see where we can make our delivery more efficient, but also engaging with our stakeholders. We take their feedback pretty seriously, right. So if they see a particular area isn't isn't working for them, or they need a different module or they need an integration prioritized, um, what we're taking that feedback and adapting our, our process. So those, those four things are really kind of help us solve that human work that I described that I think is really the hard stuff in a system rollout.

Um, so some of the first things that we built, um, again, we were focusing on agent confidence, message clarity and member connection, really. So to kind of boil down the right hand side here, we were trying to serve up meaningful data and information to our agents that we're talking to our members. Right. So transaction history, you know, if I came into a branch, you know, on a Monday, and then I came back in on a Friday having a record of that kind of history of when I've come in and tried to to do something from a banking standpoint that's critical, right? That's critical for the agent to understand what I'm trying to do. There's also like case notes and things like that that can help again, inform, you know, maybe the next thing I want to talk about with a particular member. So that member 360 profile, um, really huge in helping us kind of share that information, guided conversations.

So this really early on took the form of a lot of help text in the various workflows, um, something that we never really had the ability to do before, but basically in real time, give the agent that was talking to a member guidance on, you know, here's what this field means. Make sure you ask about this particular Killer, you know, thing in this in this transaction. Right. We were actually able to give that information, live to the to the agent to help them through that interaction. And then automation, obviously a huge thing for us. Um, you know, we've done a lot over the past few years, um, around robotics, um, you know, to, to really a lot of those manual processes that I talked about really kind of going opportunity by opportunity, um, and just automating those, those away.

So, you know, those are the things that we delivered, right? Like what what were members feeling as we delivered that. Right. So I kind of mentioned this when I was describing the member 360 view. Um, you know, some of the things that our members are feeling is it felt like you were picking right up where we left off, right. So again, in that example that I used, I came in on a Monday, maybe I started a loan process. I wanted to open up a car loan. Then I came back in on Friday to see where it was going. Maybe I had to provide additional information or documentation. Right? Um, the person in the branch would have that detail readily available to them and would lead to a better, better interaction.

Um, the other thing that we were hearing was, um, members were saying we weren't just answering their questions. They were actually the agents were actually helping them do something. Right. So it wasn't like I called in and I got my balance. It was I called in about a loan. And, you know, that led to maybe conversations about, you know, why am I looking for a loan, right. Which could, could potentially, you know, steer the, the action in a different direction. Right. So we were giving them an opportunity to not have to focus on just providing information and being a part of the conversation.

The contact center agents, um, so the high volume of calls and chats and emails that come in through the contact center, um, they finally felt like they had the tools they needed to do their job, which I think is, you know, probably one of the most important things. Um, so I'm a manager, I want to make sure my team has the ability to do their job and do it well. Right. So we were finally hearing that from the contact center. Um, Pega gave them the ability to really succeed in their day to day job. And then kind of going back to that kind of guided conversation, the help text people felt like they finally had a coach in the system. So I think historically, they probably leveraged, um, their teammates, their colleagues, the people sitting around them. Right. You know, I don't know how to do this particular thing. I'm going to go talk to somebody on my team. Um, instead of doing that, they actually now have information within the workflows to help them get through that transaction. Right. So that was that that Coach in the system.

All right. And then, you know, I would say early on the first six months, you know, we got that initial kind of work done. We stood up the system some, you know, the 360 profile work. Um, you know, doing some core workflows. So pretty quick to get value out of Pega. Um, but you can see over the years we just keep on building on top of it. And it's really spread across the whole credit union. So again, we started like the the member facing teams, but we quickly went into back office teams. I mentioned the commercial loan origination. We've done a lot of work with our card services team around the disputes process. Um, we've built, uh, you know, very extensive fraud detection in operational workflows within Pega.

And it's and it's not only just helped those individual teams, we've also helped connect the, the the distinct departments. So in that fraud example, the fraud operations team, you know, on a day to day basis, they're managing fraud events and they're going about their day. And, you know, obviously those events are tied to members. We were able to surface up in screens at our contact center. And branch staff were in all of those events. Right. Here's what's happening with the member. You know, they were, you know, fraud activity on these accounts. They could actually see it right in the screen in real time. They could even do things like lock down certain accounts completely. So it actually gave them some of that self-service capability. So we've really again leveraged this across the credit union. I think the only two groups that we haven't really leaned in too much into are the HR and the accounting team, but they have tons of manual process. They move data around in Excel spreadsheet spreadsheets. We're looking forward to working with them kind of next and seeing if we can get the full credit union covered. Um, from a Pega workflow standpoint.

And then just a note on robotics in Pega workflows as well. Um, we have had an initiative the last couple of years at DCU around our saved, um, in the first year that we, that we really stood up robotics. Um, we were able to save over 100,000 hours of manual work through using robotics and using Pega workflows. Last year we were up over 250,000 hours. And this year we have a we have a goal to go up above 275,000 hours. So this has not only enabled our teams to do their job well, but it's also allowing them to to get rid of that manual work that nobody wants to do. Right. And it gives you consistency, repeatability, predictability. Right. So um, it's been huge in those areas.

And just to touch on some of the volumes that we're pushing through, Pega, um, over 200,000 phone interactions per month, 8000 chats, 80,000 service requests, 20,000 online service requests and 33,000 email interactions, all flowing through Pega, again mainly through the contact center and the branch staff.

All right. And then to wrap up, um, so we obviously went through this eight year journey, um, clearly tough at times. We learned a lot. Um, so what would we tell teams that are just starting out on this journey? Right. Um, first and foremost, think ahead. I think our choice to pick a platform like Pega really served us well. We were able to clearly the platform is evolving itself, but we were able to to kind of go along with that. Um, and it solved the problems we were having eight years ago. And it continues to give us an opportunity to solve new problems that keep on coming up in our business.

Um, think systemically. Right. So, um, traditionally, we probably like to solve problems within our silos, within our individual teams. Um, you know, we've taken the approach of trying to integrate those teams as much through Pega. I gave the example of the fraud operations team and the contact center having some some touchpoints within Pega. Um, we are always looking for opportunities to do that. It leads to better outcomes, not only for the teams, but clearly for the member. They're going to get faster. Again, more predictable responses from our member facing teams.

And then think empathetically. So technology is great again. I'm an engineer. I love it day in and day out. I love learning about it. Um, PegaWorld has been great to see what what Pega is doing new in the system. Um, but it must serve people, right? At the end of the day, we're here to serve our members. We're here to serve. Serve our internal teams. Um, and if we don't think about those kind of aspects of our work, we're going to ultimately fail in the long run. Um, and yeah, great service starts with knowing your member Pega helped us get us there at scale. Thank you.

Q&A Session Thank you, Matt, on that part. Yeah. So if the audience has questions, there are microphones over there and there to step up. So. Yeah. Thank you. Of course.

Hey. Great. Thanks. Uh, yeah. You mentioned, like, workflows here and there. Where did you spend your most time on? Was it like loan origination, commercial or retail? What was the focus? The big thing.

Yeah. Um, so it's eight years of development. So it's a very long, a long time frame. Um, I would say probably the most use that we see out of Pega is our contact center. It's our branch staff. Um, really enabling them to do their job on a in a day in and day out basis. So integrating with our telephony system and things like that, we've done a lot of work around that. Um, but we have done extensive work. I mentioned commercial loans. That's that was a large project. We continue to do things from a regulatory standpoint with them. Um, so yeah, we we're always, you know, working with the various teams across the, across the business. There's no real one team that we, that we tend to really focus on. So it's yeah pretty widespread.

Let me pick on that, Matt. Um, when you talk with so many teams and so many different topics and so many different people, I mean, I was Co-operative Bank myself. We were quite siloed in that part. Is it the same or was it the same? And what changed when you did that project?

Yeah, I would say it's it it was like that very siloed and still is. Um, yeah. And I think Pega is a technology that can help bring those things together. But ultimately that's just the org structure and really the nature of some of the things that teams are doing. So yeah, I think by, you know, by those things it is still pretty siloed. Yeah, yeah. Two other questions. One was you said 275,000 hours. Yeah. That's about what, 150 160 FTEs. Yeah. How many people are you in general working that stuff? Not not counting the IT. But but what impact was that? How big's the workforce that does that time of work?

Yeah. I mean, so that was across the whole credit union. A bulk of that was for our contact center staff, which is about 600 employees. So a very significant. Yeah. Significant number. Yeah.

So last question. You've been two days at PegaWorld. What have you seen that you're going to implement in these workflows. And how do you think it's going to help you?

Yeah. So I'm obviously very excited about Agentic AI and thinking how that could change the way that we look at. I talked about robotics Agentic process automation. I think that's going to be a huge thing for us in getting rid of that manual work that we do. Again, that's very error prone and inconsistent, right? So trying to to leverage those technologies to, to, to improve those. And then Blueprint has been very, very exciting. Um, we're potentially going into a merger, um, later this year. And we're going to have to figure out, you know, what are the right workflows to bring forward into the new credit union. Right. And is Blueprint going to be a kind of enabling technology to help us kind of speed that up and build the new workflows, or even to take the old workflows as inputs into building them. So, yeah.

Are there any questions from the room? Last chance. Thank you very much, Matt. Thank you, all of you, for being here. And, uh, don't forget perceptions on the Innovation hub in a couple of minutes. Thank you. Thanks.