Client Story: Citadel Credit Union

Citadel Credit Union ($6.6 billion assets) serves 285,000 members in Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Lancaster, Montgomery, and Philadelphia Counties in Pennsylvania. They are a credit union built on the unshakeable promise to serve those who work every day to build a better future. For over 85 years, they've delivered a breadth of financial services, expert guidance, and innovative tools to help strengthen and grow businesses, families, and local communities. 'We are your Citadel, and we are Building Strength Together.' 

Opportunity

After sunsetting their bank-by-phone system, Citadel found members didn't shift to online banking. They kept calling, driving up volume to the contact center and the third-party overflow provider. The team hoped behaviors would change, but after 12 months the financial and member experience impact made clear they needed a new solution.

"We wanted to provide our members more than they had before. We also needed to find a solution that would allow us to decrease call volumes, improve member experience, and reduce costs," says Pam Krupansky, VP of Member Experience and Sales.

But the problem ran deeper than volume. The channels members used to reach Citadel weren't talking to each other.

"The challenges we were facing before implementing AI was really siloed operations," says John Miller, VP of Call Center Operations and Strategy. "We have different channels which members reach out to us, whether it be through the phones, through digital. So it was really hard to aggregate that data together into a single source to really understand what the member friction points were."

Citadel's staffing strategy includes a third-party provider for peak times and after-hours. It had worked well, but the post-sunset call volume significantly impacted those costs. On top of that, 30% of calls handled by the third-party provider were sent back to the credit union for further assistance. Minimizing total calls was key to controlling costs and easing the load on contact center staff, all while protecting Citadel's Net Promoter Score.

Solution

In reviewing solutions, Citadel saw the opportunity in conversational AI. The team embraced not just replacing bank-by-phone, but using AI to assist every member who calls. The mission: reduce calls to the contact center, route the right calls directly to specialty groups like collections and new member onboarding, cut costs, and create a better member experience.

Citadel partnered with Posh to strategize and deploy their vision. This wasn't just about cost savings and 24/7 answers. It gave Citadel a competitive advantage through call flow management. Members are immediately routed to the most skilled employee, without navigating a maze of IVR menus. Citadel also built custom flows for members flagged for specific groups like collections and indirect lending.

The credit union launched Adel, Posh's Voice Assistant, in October 2021. Adel greets callers, provides immediate answers, and transfers to humans when needed or when an account is flagged for a specific service.

"The biggest problem we had to solve was making it easier to get to the right agent without a lot of friction," said Krupansky. "We can now get the call to the best-skilled employee to handle the task."

Adel also offers an added layer of security. Members calling from a registered phone number can authenticate with their member number and PIN, keeping member data safe. And Adel is easy to manage. Staff handle her behind the scenes without needing an IT ticket or program manager.

After seeing the success of the Voice Assistant, Citadel added the Digital Assistant in May 2023, starting on their website and quickly expanding to online banking and mobile. With both member-facing channels live, Citadel turned inward. In summer 2024 they added Knowledge Assistant to support the agents themselves. Where Voice and Digital Assistant serve members directly, Knowledge Assistant works behind the scenes, giving agents a single place to search and surface accurate answers instantly instead of digging through scattered documents and systems. With all three products in place, Citadel finally closed the gap between channels.

"Bringing voice and digital knowledge together has changed our operation by allowing us to see the entire member journey," Miller says. "So now we can anticipate needs better, understand where our friction points are, and help elevate our success."

Adel by the numbers

Since launch, Adel has handled:

• 1.8 million+ calls handled (as of 6/26)
• $663,267 saved in third-party costs
• NPS increased 6 points
• 2M+ chats handled
• 84% Digital Assistant containment rate (as of 6/26)

The impact

A year after deployment, Citadel reduced the cost of overflow calls to the contact center by 63%, going from $1.5 million in annual contact center spend to $389,078. Adel's performance gave Citadel the confidence to eliminate third-party after-hours support entirely.

"People were calling but not always receiving the help they needed, they could only really answer basic questions. Ultimately, calls would be rerouted back to the credit union," Krupansky said.

For Miller, the clearest win has been efficiency, and what that does for members.

"The one thing that members value probably more than anything else is their time," he says. "Our ability to get responses quicker to members, to get them off the phone faster, to give our agents that knowledge at their fingertips, all helps reduce time, increases efficiency, and naturally that helps increase member satisfaction at the end of the day."

That efficiency reshaped the agent experience too. By taking routine questions off the top, the bots and the Knowledge Assistant freed agents to focus on the hard conversations.

"Rather than trying to teach them 100 things, we're really focusing on teaching them about 10 things," Miller says. "That really makes them feel like they're more comfortable handling these more difficult interactions."

The member experience numbers followed. By implementing conversational AI that included banking transactions, Citadel's contact center NPS jumped six points faster than expected, with no disruption to staffing.

Cost savings weren't the only gain. Routing new members directly to the indirect lending onboarding group let the team focus on onboarding and deepening relationships. They've converted 17% of these new members from a single-product account to multiple products, while giving the call center more time to expand members' financial journeys.

"We improved our net promoter from 63% to 70%, it was a really nice jump," Krupansky said. "We saved money, we stabilized our staff and we increased our NPS score."

A lasting partnership

Adel is the digital team player Citadel has come to love, managing repetitive tasks so employees can focus on relationship building and revenue-generating conversations.

For Miller, the surprise has been the partnership itself.

"What surprised me most after working with Posh is just the collaboration. It feels like everything's possible, to be honest," he says. "Just thinking about where we started six, seven years ago with Posh and where we are today, I would have never pictured this journey and how far we've come. I don't know what tomorrow holds, but I'm excited to find out."

"We chose Posh for their proven track record of streamlining the customer experience and the ability to customize our voice, so our members have seamless and consistent service no matter the channel," said Krupansky. "Not to mention, we continue to be impressed by the level of partnership we've received from Posh. Throughout the entire process, Posh has felt like an extension of our Citadel team."