So our presenters today are Steven Johnson, AVP of administration and marketing at I think Financial, Christine Lindquist, manager of customer success at Engageware, and Brendan Kournoyer, VP of marketing at SundaeSky.

And before I pass things over, to Steven to talk a little bit more about I think Financial and how they partner with SundaeSky and Engageware, I wanna, take a moment to highlight what you’re seeing on this slide.

So this gives you a quick snapshot of Steven’s background.

He brings decades of experience across credit unions, banking, and financial services.

He’s led in a variety of roles that span marketing, operations, business development, and sales.

And on the right, you’ll see a great photo of Steven and his team during a Habitat for Humanity project, which really reflects the community driven culture at iThink and the impact that they strive to make just beyond day to day operations.

And with that, I’ll go ahead and turn it over to Steven, share a little bit more about iThink Financial, and kick off the webinar.

Alright. Well, thank you, Danielle. I really appreciate you guys having me today. I consider myself one of those lucky people that, can say that the credit union industry is the only industry that they’ve ever worked in.

As you can see, you know, I do work for iThink Financial. I’ve actually celebrated my eighteen year anniversary, with this credit union as of last week, and I just love what they do. But I really feel like, you know, the things that make credit unions unique, we could not do if we didn’t have vendor partnerships with companies like Sunday Sky and Engageware. Your digital first services allow us to be able to spend time out of the branch and in the field where we belong. And, so I really appreciate the partnerships that we have with you all and, being able to talk about how we use those, today.

So, this slide here, you know, you can see basically that, our credit union is, headquartered in, Delray Beach, Florida. We started as I think Financial. We started as IBM, Credit Union, excuse me, and then transitioned over to I think Financial in, two thousand. But, we’re one of the few credit unions that’s in two states, Florida and Georgia, and we started in nineteen sixty nine as that IBM credit union for IBM employees at the Boca Raton campus.

A little bit of trivia for you. This campus is the one that created the PC and also the control alt delete function that a lot of us use today. So September seventeenth, nineteen sixty nine, five of those employees pitched in a quarter to start what is now, a two point two billion dollar credit union, representing over one hundred and sixteen thousand members. And, you know, we you can see our core values here. We really think that vendor partnerships should reflect your core values. And so, you know, this is something that during our, our due diligence, you know, that we look for, because the more values we align with, you know, the easier it will be for us to attain our our mission and vision. So so a little bit about us, and

I’ll go ahead and turn it back to you, Danielle.

Perfect. I am actually gonna kick things off. So, Steven, thank you. I mean, it’s great to hear you share more about iThink. Definitely some fun facts that you littered in there that I did not know.

And partnership’s really important to us too, so I love that you highlighted that. So I’m gonna tell everyone a little bit about Engageware. So Engageware’s mission is to help companies and regulated industries make every interaction count by creating moments that matter throughout the customer journey. Our platform is comprised of three capabilities that business leaders use to transform customer engagement. So we have appointment scheduling, conversational AI and AI agents, and employee knowledge management. So in a little bit, we’re going to talk about the pieces of our platform that I think has leveraged throughout their business.

Go to the next slide.

Perfect. So let’s start things by talking about credit union culture when it comes to the member experience, and we’re really going to focus on this tug and pull of appointment scheduling and walk in activities. So credit unions have historically encouraged members to stop by anytime, which has built a culture where walk ins feel natural and expected to those members.

There’s very little formality around visiting a branch, so members typically don’t think twice about just showing up to their favorite branch. And while this is convenient for the member, as you can imagine, it can make things a little bit harder for branches in terms of predicting and managing demand within within their lobbies. So while high accessibility is certainly, you know, a great experience for the member, I think that what is really a great differentiator about credit unions, which I think that Steven touched on in his description of I think, is that the differentiators really through personal relationships and community connection.

So members typically, you know, they feel comfortable walking in because they know and they trust the staff that they’re working with, and they expect that personal relationship driven experience. And this familiarity leads members to believe that they don’t need an appointment to have a meaningful interaction.

So many members assume they’ll be helped immediately upon arrival because the credit union model has always emphasized service over structure, which can be challenging, especially during peak times or when staff is tight, or even worse, maybe a combination of both of those things.

But this highlights the importance of, you know, really being able to balance accessibility and operational efficiency.

Go to the next slide.

Alright. Perfect. So now that we’ve set the stage for walk in culture at credit unions, let’s talk about why walk ins often outpace scheduled visits.

And we’re going to use I think financial as a great example, especially since I think this is going to resonate with everybody across the industry.

So for many members, the branch is part of their everyday routine. So whether you’re out and about going to the grocery store, going to the pharmacy, you know, dropping into your credit union to make a deposit or do any other transactional services, You know, the routine of being able to pop in is definitely part of that community aspect.

But this can be challenging in terms of cultivating an appointment based environment.

A large share of branch traffic is straight is for straightforward needs. So withdrawals, credit card issues, balance checks, members don’t think that these interactions require planning ahead, so they often default to walking in.

So that perceived immediacy means that members are assuming walking in will be faster than scheduling, even if that’s not always true. The perception really drives this member behavior, which means that it can be hard to shift without clear alternatives.

And ultimately, there is an awareness gap. So appointment scheduling still feels new in financial services, so it’s not quite like other industries such as health care where scheduling is standard. So because adoption is early in financial services, many members don’t even realize scheduling is an option or they’re unsure when they should use it.

So, Steven, I wanna pick your brain on this a little bit. Can you tell us how I think financial has navigated, you know, being able to support a digital experience for members who may not be accustomed to engaging with you with in this way?

Yeah. So, you know, I I think we all know that a great banking experience is based on truly understanding your account holder journey. It really helps you determine what improvements can be made. So as we started looking at our account holder journey, one of the obvious places we thought, you know, we could talk about appointment scheduling and how that would be convenient for members was on our website.

And, you know, a lot of people, you know, go to a certain page that I think we all have called the contact us page. And the purpose of that page is where you normally have an eight hundred number or some sort of form that you’ve got to, input in order to have that route to a certain department. And so we realized, hey. This is a great opportunity to let people know that you don’t have to give us a call. You can if you want.

But in addition to that another channel that may work better for you is to schedule an appointment. When we looked at the appointment scheduling option as well on this page, it was important for us to realize that, you know, members may not just want to schedule an appointment to walk in. They may also just want to schedule a time during their busy day to talk to someone, and so we made both of those options available.

We live in two states where some of the dynamics are very different than what you experience elsewhere. First of all, you know, Metro Atlanta. No one wants to drive to a credit union branch after they’ve been to work.

So we really felt that it would behoove us to make sure that our members could schedule, you know, a time that would work for them. Also, you know, down here in South Florida, a lot of our members, you know, are snowbirds. And so sometimes they’re, you know, in a different state. And so being able to offer them a phone appointment, was really crucial.

So one of the other things we realized is a lot of people are searching for, I think, financial. Maybe they’re visiting a different area in Atlanta that they normally don’t go to, or, they are, they have a new job, and they’re looking for where the nearest branch is.

And so I’m sure a lot of, just like, we do, a lot of you all have these search engine optimization, searches in Google. So, when someone looks for one of your locations by name, you know, that branch card comes up. Well, one of the things that we felt would be really helpful was a a service called Reserve with Google and, Engageware, I believe was first to market, you know, with this with appointment scheduling.

Nine out of ten searches are still done on Google. And so, what this will allow is when someone looks for one of your branches and that account card comes up, appointment scheduling button comes up. And so it’s so convenient for someone to you know, who may be thinking, oh, I’ve got, you know, all of these errands I’ve gotta, you know, run, today after work. Oh, I can simply just schedule an appointment with, my credit union and maybe talk to them, you know, in the car while, I’m en route to these appointments.

So, those are a few ways that we’ve handled it. You know, one of the other things that we thought was, really helpful is, you know, we’re all looking to grow members, and so I think everyone has, like, a a join online or join us page. And so we realized that it was important to have appointment scheduling on that page as well because sometimes people have questions about what product would be best for them. And so, or they just wanted to, you know, understand, well, you know, what type of people are going to be handling my account.

And so we thought it was important to add that as well. And, you know, we’ll talk about, you know, some of the success that we’re seeing in, you know, scheduling, across the board a little bit later.

But we know that those are some areas that were built into our member journey deliberately, and they’re producing intended results.

Yeah. That’s amazing to hear. And I think what you’re really highlighting is that you’re able to meet the member wherever they are in their journey with you. And what you’re describing is, you know, you can meet with them on their own time, but also be able to service them in their branches if if they need to, which is great that you’re able to support so many different experiences.

Yeah.

Okay. You can go to the next slide. Perfect.

So while walk ins dominate today, I think financial does offer scheduling just like what Steven was just describing. And I’d say that this is especially for, you know, higher value, more complex interactions. So the challenge isn’t quite, you know, the lack of scheduling options, but rather how members are using them.

So I think financial, you know, has the infrastructure, you know, that Steven just, you know, so eloquently described in place so that members can book ahead when they know they’re gonna need more time, you know, or specialized support, or maybe they are short on time and they need to be able to call you from the car in their evening commute. So members can schedule for complex needs like mortgages, loans, financial advisory, and definitely more pressing, you know, fraud issues. And I think financial is able to meet them in that channel of their choosing, whether that’s in branch or over the phone.

I’d say the bigger gap is awareness and education, which we talked about a little bit in the previous slide. So members don’t quite understand the benefits of scheduling, which are faster service, guaranteed access to the right expert, reduced wait time. So without that understanding, they default to what they know, which is walking into a branch, especially for everyday banking tasks.

So branches typically see heavy routine transaction traffic. So this would be things like deposits, withdrawals, you know, maybe just different account updates that are naturally going to have fewer fewer appointments booked.

On the other hand, advisory focused branches, you would see higher utilization around, you know, services that might lend themselves to planning ahead. So appointment adoption, you know, very significantly, I think, depending on the branch’s role and the type of member demand that it receives. So, you know, Steven, I’m curious. You know, we’re talking a lot about the the member experience and how, you know, this a tool such as scheduling certainly makes sense and is a complement to that experience. But how has your staff adopted appointment scheduling, and what is that what has been the impact, to their day to day?

Yeah. That’s a really good question. You know, I think, you know, as we look at it more from a senior management, you know, perspective, we’ve even seen benefits at that level. As you roll out an appointment scheduling, environment, within your credit union or or bank, you’ll learn that you can set up the different topics that someone may want to check-in and, you know, see you for.

So it’s really helped us understand that, you know, maybe we don’t need a really competent MSA at a branch all the time. Perhaps there’s another branch where we tend to get, you know, members that have more complex needs, and so it helps us allocate those, that workforce in an efficient manner. I think for the employee as well, though, a lot of times, an employee who wants to make sure that they they they’ve really hit it off with a member, and they wanna make sure to provide good member service with them, they will encourage them to make an appointment so that that way, regardless of any walk ins, that that member has that specific time slot available to work with them.

So I feel like it’s really allowed for us, you know, the platform to establish, know, better member service all the way around from the employee level, you know, up organizationally.

Yeah. So just kind of a smooth smooth sailing, you know, from beginning to end in terms of servicing that member.

Yeah. Absolutely.

That’s great.

Perfect. Go to the next slide.

Right. This is actually a great lead in to our next topic. So, you know, managing walk ins and appointments effectively certainly depends on having confident, well informed staff. So we’re gonna take a look at how I think financial is strengthening its internal knowledge systems to support that.

So Ask Connect, which is self titled by I think financial, they use our employee knowledge management platform, gives employees access to curated, reliable information, which is essential in a fast moving branch environment. So, Steven, tell us a little bit about what life was like before Ask Connect.

I don’t even wanna think about it. I don’t think any of our employees do either because we were using the SharePoint system that was really, it wasn’t easy to use. It really didn’t give us a lot of information about how employees were using the system.

Not the easiest to update. A lot of times, we needed to have IT called in in order to update it, and it yeah. We we had outgrown it probably in the nineties. So what we were able to find is a solution through Engageware that really helped us uncover some of the needs that we have that we didn’t even know that we needed. So one of the ones in particular that we needed to know that, again, you don’t think about is, let’s say you’re rolling out a product or a service, and you’ve got all of this content related to that product or service. How do you know what’s helpful to the employee? How can you see, if content needs to be changed?

How can you make it easier for the owner of that content to make those changes? And so, our employee knowledge management, system, again, that we’ve, you know, branded Ask Connect, helps deliver all of that. We’ve actually taken it a level higher in that, you know, I think all of your, financial institutions represented today have some sort of annual strategic initiative. Right?

And, we thought, well, how can we turn this into a theme that is engaging for an employee? And so you’ll notice that, you know, there’s a lot of blue on here. You see this I think tank logo. Well, that is our current, initiative this year, which is to push our employees to think about ways that they can improve the member experience, not just through things like AI, but there could be some operational enhancements.

In addition, how could they improve the employee experience? What are some things that senior management, you know, needs to know that could improve, their experience? So, anyway, that’s the theme I think taken. So you can see it’s front and center whenever an employee clicks on, you know, our ask connect page.

So everyone knows what the theme is. And if they want to find out more information, you can see we’ve created some buttons here that they can just go and click on and find out more detail about the I think tank campaign. So so, again, it’s really helped us understand, you know, what our employees’ needs are in relation to, you know, being better servicers of our members. And so, yeah, much better than a SharePoint screen.

Yeah. Definitely sounds like it. Much improved.

And one of the things you mentioned is in terms of, you know, this being an initiative, you know, something that we’ve been partnering together this year and that has been a major focus is making sure that FastConnect is easier to navigate. So we’re focused on fewer clicks, a more intuitive layout for your employees. And, really, this matters because the easier it is to use, the more consistent employees are gonna rely on it.

Well and even the more managers are gonna use it. I mean, we have as you can see, you know, we’ve got team sites that are set up. So each department that we have, set up on Ask Connect can manage and curate their own content.

And so, again, you know, how unifying is that, you know, where you can, basically give ownership of content to a department. And, you know, if they don’t know how to use it, they can look at other team sites to say, oh, you know, this could be a way that maybe we could roll out, you know, this content in a way that’s easy to, understand for all employees. So so, yeah, it’s just been really, really great for us. And, you know, our approach to member service is we have to provide excellent employee service first in order for them to then continue that ex that excellent experience with our membership.

Yeah. And I’m glad you said that because what you’re describing in terms of ownership and just content, I want everyone to to keep in mind that this isn’t just for policies and procedures, which are definitely very important so that, you know, employees feel confident when talking to members. But, you know, in your case, it’s really become a one stop internal hub for, you know, job postings, new hire information, you know, any internal updates. So it’s keeping everybody aligned because everybody’s navigating to the same place where there is that one source of truth.

I think one of the the biggest advantages is that the same core information can support both member and employee experiences.

You know? So, you know, what we’re talking about today is really that employee facing, know, internal content, you know, but we’re also able to partner in terms of delivering content in member facing channels such as the website or online banking. And so this gives better control over accuracy and better control over, you know, how content is written so that there’s a lot of consistency. So it reduces the risk of employees and members referencing that outdated or incorrect content.

So as a result, there’s fewer mistakes, which is great.

So what would you say are the long term impacts of Ask Connect on the member experience?

Well, we’ve used Ask Connect as a way to launch initiatives for our members. So, we had a core conversion back in twenty twenty three. And for anyone who’s gone through the pain of that, you know that you really have to get your employees on board because because if there are any challenges that a member is going to experience, they need to be able to deal though deal with those firsthand. And so, we had a series of tools that were available for employees on Ask Connect, and we could the the great thing about Ask Connect that we’re kind of, you know, dancing around here that the employee knowledge management system allows for you to do is employees can indicate whether that content is helpful or not.

So, you know, that thumbs up, thumbs down, you know, scenario that we’re used to as consumers, Ask Connect allows for that functionality to happen. The thumbs down is really important, right, because if it’s missing something, it allows the employee to go ahead and enter that information of of what’s missing. And so it may not be missing per se, but it may not be in the right area. And so, literally, with just a few clicks, you can either, you know, copy that information over to that section where the employee intuitively looks for it or change or add information.

So it’s it’s a very simple process. So I feel like, you know, if we’re using it for projects as large as a core conversion, It’s really crucial with every product rollout that we have, to make sure that the information is there, on Ask Connect. Now, you know, we we still have trainings, that happen with products and services. We actually use Sunday Sky for some of those, kind of prefacing that.

But, the the great thing is that we can store all of that training material without having to be reduplicated or anything right here on Ask Connect. So it’s also helped improve the efficiency of rollout of projects from that perspective.

Awesome.

Thank you. And that’s actually a perfect lead in, you know, talking about Sunday Sky. I’ll pass it over to Brandon.

Thank you. Yes. Very good segue. Hello, everyone. It’s been a minute since our intro slides.

So just to hello again, I’m Brendan Knoyer. I head up marketing, with Sunday Sky, and and I’m here with Steven to continue this conversation, that we’re talking about about, I think, financials approach, digital first approach around customer and employee engagement. And, you know, we just saw some great examples of how they do that with Engageware. But, of course, the the, the format of that content, the nature of of content also plays a huge role in in driving engagement with different audiences.

And, you know, certainly, video is is is a very powerful way to do that, and that’s where Sunday’s Sky comes in. So, you know, our mission from a platform perspective is, you know, to empower businesses to unlock the full potential of video, and making it effortless effortless to create customer member and employee experiences that engage, educate, and inspire. So what does that mean? Really, Sunny Sky is a single all in one platform, video platform for all the ways your business grows.

And we work with a lot of different organizations across industries, but in particular, we feel and we found that we have a really powerful and effective solution for companies in the financial sector. And we work with companies like Bank of America, Lincoln Financial, Morgan Stanley, and, of course, credit unions like I think Financial, to elevate not only their their video strategy and their content strategy, but their engagement strategy. So let’s talk a little bit, moving on, about what that looks like and why, why Sundae Sky has been such a powerful choice, for companies like, I think, Financial.

And, you know, there’s the strengths around the platform because there’s lots of different ways to create video. You know? Those first two bullets here that you see, they really go hand in hand, creating an affordable but also intuitive experience. So you need no video expertise.

You don’t have to be a design expert to create not just video content, but professional quality content with a very short learning curve. So, you know, in a nutshell, it’s really easy to create really effective, compelling, memorable content, and and that’s the course one of the core strengths of our platform. But it’s also very flexible. Like we said, it’s it we we we wanna have a single platform for all the different ways your biz your your business needs to get needs to get communications out there.

And especially at larger enterprises, you may see videos being used, but there’s different tools out there. Some, you know, some pocket of the company may be using some free tool that has no control or or or oversight over.

You know, another group may be using something different. We wanna have what we’ve been really focused on is providing a platform that’s flexible to be used by any department for any requirement. And and we’re gonna look at a few of those examples of how I think financial uses Sunday Sky in just a moment.

And that flexibility can can can extend to all the different ways you wanna create a video. You can create videos of yourself. You can create videos of your screen. You can use AI to auto generate videos. You can have on screen text, animation themes, all these different things that you can do.

AI avatars, custom generated voice over and narration. Lots of different things that you can do from a single platform. You know, I like to say there’s a million ways to create a video. You can do them all with Sunday Sky. And then when you take those videos, you can create one video and you can personalize it in really powerful ways.

And this is something that that a lot of financial institutions use video for is, you know, you create a video that you wanna send out to a hundred people or a thousand people, and they all have a different story and a different way you wanna engage with them.

Based on what you know about your members, about your customers, and your audience base, you can plug into these data sources very securely and, creates a single video, send it out to a thousand people, and all of those people have a a unique experience based on, what you know about them and what their experiences have been, with your company and your brand. So, it’s a very exciting platform. It’s exciting platform to talk about, but let’s talk about some real examples. Let’s look at how how I think Financial is using Sunday Sky in some different ways.

And, you know, we’ll start with with the external facing content, you know, how how, iThink is able to, utilize video, to engage members and also educate members. And, you know, video, not just a way to engage folks, but definitely get folks up to speed on the things that they need to know about. And there’s a few key ways, and great examples here, that, that we wanted to share. And, Steven, I’d love, to give you the opportunity now to jump in to share a little more insight into some of these examples in terms of member facing education and support, but also, you know, watching new products and making that information available, to members via video.

Yeah. Sure. So I’ll I’ll take the the one that I believe we’re going to demonstrate, our Zelle rollout for members. So we started a relationship with Zelle about two years ago.

And as many of you are, we are looking for ways to bring in a younger member. And Zelle was one of those products that we knew younger members would use. However, they were using the Zelle app, and the platform that we were going to would not allow a member of ours to use the Zelle app. They actually had to use the component within our online banking system.

And so, we were like, okay. We’ve got to make this an easy transition. We’ve made an investment into Zelle, and we need to make sure that members are using it.

So a recent study showed that seventy three to seventy eight percent of consumers would prefer to watch a video about a product or service than read text. And so, you know, we were like, great opportunity to create a Sunday sky video. So, basically, what this did is it just walked the member through, I think it was about, two minutes, how to go ahead and perform a Zelle transaction.

So it was a way that we could have the member understand how to use it, but at the same time, introduce the product, you know, to the member and explain to them the the behavioral difference that they were going to have to, you know, use online banking instead of, you know, going through this Zelle app that they had used. One of the things that we think is really helpful about this, the Sunday Sky platform is, the ADA compliance that is built into the, to the software platform. So closed captioning happens automatically. If for some reason on a rare account, let’s say, the closed captioning doesn’t, maybe you have a a weird name like I think financial, and it doesn’t know how to put that properly into ADA, friendly terms.

You can actually go in and edit it. So, it really has helped us roll out products in a way that are engaging with our members, but as well, you know, keeps us compliant. So I think that’s those are two really important things as you think about a digital first approach to growing, products and services.

And that’s great. And as you can see here, you know, anything that, that a member needs to be, educated on or you wanna provide instruction on, you know, video, like like, Steven, like you said, not only a more effective way to get that information across, but a preferred way. This is how, you know, folks would rather watch a two minute video than read through, you know, you know, a long text heavy, document. So we’re about to look at an example, but there’s also, you know, I think Financial is using, video for things around, you know, where and how to find info around new account statements, online credit card disputes, really anything, that if you’re educating your customers or you have some sort of knowledge base right now of common questions or things that, that are new that they need to know about, video video and Sunday Sky is a great solution for that.

So let’s look at let’s look at an example. Let’s look at, this is a real example, that I think, Financial could use Sunday Sky for, around this Zelle rollout. We won’t watch the whole video. We’ll just watch a a quick fifteen second snippet of it, give you a taste of it, and, you know, let’s hit play and check it out.

Alright. So we can pause it here. No. I think we do have some audio on that video, but it looks like it’s not coming through on the Zoom.

But I assure you that there’s audio there, and there’s a few different ways you can handle audio with Sunday Sky. It’s very simple. You know, there’s music library, background music libraries that you can choose from for a variety of of tracks depending on the tone and style of both your brand, but the nature of the content that you have to keep the video moving. There’s also automatic narration.

There are stock voices, AI voices that will you can use in a variety of different languages and cadences and geographies that you can use to make sure that you have the right narration and voice over. You can also clone your own voice if you like it or or your executive’s voices depending on the nature of the video. So there’s lots of different ways to do that. Couldn’t hear it right there, but I assure you there is audio on the video.

Alright. So that’s an example of an external facing asset. In terms of internal facing, so we’re talking about the different audiences. We were just talking about that when we’re looking at the Engageware examples, but you wanna engage your members. But there’s also, you know, opportunities to engage your your internal teams.

And there’s a lot of different examples that that I think the team at I think Financial is using to engage internal audiences, keeping them engaged, but also around training and communications and key things that are coming up. It’s also this is a way that a lot of our other customers across financial services, insurance, and other industries use Sunday Sky as well from employee training, HR, and performance videos.

Steven, I’d love to to just share once again a little bit of insight about some of the different ways and some of the examples we have here that I think is using, Sunday Sky video content, for internal purposes.

Yeah. So I’ll talk about that employee training bullet, shortened consumer lending training. So we used to put our new employees through three days of consumer lending training. I can’t imagine anything more boring, but that’s what we used to do before our relationship with Sunday Sky.

Then we realized, hey. You know, the Sunday Sky platform allows for us to, you know, make this content a little bit more interesting. Again, you know, go back to, you know, like, the content. You know, seventy up to seventy eight percent of people want to see a video.

We’re able to take that content and put it into training that lasts now about four hours, which still is a seems like a lot to me, but, it’s a lot less time investment for the trainers. Employees can, you know, pause and, maybe, you know, go back, you know, reverse the video if they need to, if they didn’t catch something. One of the things I will tell you the consumer lending department loves about, as the platform changes or procedures change or something, they can go back to that original link, make the changes, and then just republish the video. So it’s not like they’re having to start from scratch.

So the platform’s really flexible there.

That same, I think, take theme that you saw on Engageware, we actually rolled out an employee training on that. And, you know, we’ve used it for a number of other things. We have this excellence award ceremony that used to take at least thirty minutes, and, it was this live recognition of people that had won awards. You know, I mentioned we’re in two different states.

So when we would announce someone in Atlanta, not you know, people in South Florida didn’t necessarily know who that was and so forth. So we were able to take what was, a thirty or forty minute ceremony, and we now have it down to, like, five minutes. And employees, you know, as we show this video of all of the award winners and why they’re being recognized, we see, like, employees, you know, clapping and, you know, cheering and everything. So employees are engaging with the content, you know, a lot better, you know, now.

So, but we’ve also, been able to use it for some employee events that, we want employees to attend, and I think we’ve got a video for that. So I’ll go ahead and preface what you’ll see there. So, we have employee picnics that happen in each one of our regions. And so there are some employees who have never come to one because they’re like, the word picnic sounds boring.

New employees, you know, it was hard to sell it to them because they’re like, why am I gonna come to, you know, a work event on a Saturday? And so, we put together a video about how fun these events are.

And, at the end of the video, the employee could actually then register for the event. And so that ended up being really successful. Our, attendance went up, like, twenty five percent with each one of the area each one of the regions that we have, and so it was a really successful campaign.

Alright. I think that’s a great segue. Let’s take a look at this example. We’ll see if we get audio this time around, but, at the very least, we’ll be able to get a check, a quick glimpse at what this video looked like. And, again, something that’s created without any design expertise, without any professional video production crews. It’s something that really anyone can spin up very, very easily. Let’s take a look.

So once again, here you go. So we unfortunately, we’re not hearing the audio, but I can just talk through. Obviously, you can see that this is a promotion for the event. All of these transitions, these animations, these are prebuilt in the platform.

There’s tons to select from. I think Financial’s branding is uploaded into the platform, so you can absolutely make sure that everything that, whether it’s an employee or a member is seeing, is one hundred percent on brand, and you don’t have to make any decisions or the person who’s creating the video has to make any decisions around that. All of that stuff is preloaded in. Also, if there’s updates that need to be made, I just wanna point that out as well.

Steven, you noted that, you know, a video like this, if you create it again, the following year or say you have a new scene or a new, addition to the event that you wanted to include, you wouldn’t have to create a whole new video. You just have the existing video file. You can add that additional scene. You can make an update to the copy that’s that’s that’s currently on there, and that will automatically be reflected to whoever’s watching the video even if that link has already been sent out.

So that’s a really powerful solution that, and feature that a lot of our customers use and something that you can see very applicable here. But, yeah, a perfect example, again, of, of an internal facing asset, getting, employees aware and engaged around an upcoming event and, and using a cool little video to do that.

Alright. So just moving on. Just one other example that we wanted to share, and and and we talked about, the flexibility of the platform and all the different ways you can create a video. And and and and avatars here, as exemplified on this slide, is sort of a more, a newer way, if you look at the last couple years, of of generating videos really quickly.

And AI has made this type of thing just so much more accessible. And, you know, it’s definitely a feature and a capability within within Sunday Sky. And there’s a couple of different ways that you can do avatars. You can use what we call cost stock avatars, which is just basically a library of people that you can choose from.

And, again, you can choose from a variety of different persona types and voices and to choose the bright person to deliver message that you want to and just adds that that sort of personal touch and feel. And we see a lot of companies and a lot of customers of ours using avatars for internal facing communication in particular.

And, also, in addition to, choosing from a from a library, like we’re gonna be looking at here, you also have the opportunity to create what we call as custom avatars, which could be avatars of yourself, of different, people around your organization. So say you wanted to create an avatar with a message delivered from your CEO or your head of product around a new product release or something like that. You can actually use Sunday Sky to create a custom avatar version of them and, and create that video to be spoken by them on their behalf. And it looks real.

It looks like them. It sounds like them, but they don’t have to take the time out of their day to record it. If there’s a change that needs to be made, they don’t have to do reshoots or anything like that. It becomes a very practical way to get those sort of internal communications around.

So so, again, I think we’re gonna see a quick example here. I think, has been using, has has started to test out avatars around, basically, an internal promotion, Steven, right, around an external, webinar series that is geared towards members. It’s an educational webinar series, but using avatars to actually, raise awareness internally so internal employees that I think financial can help, spread the word. Is that correct?

Yeah. You’re exactly right, Brendan. So, you know, we all have, you know, some way that we’re telling our employees, you know, talk about this with members, you know, when they call, when you see them. And so we chose to use an AI generated version of, this video that would remind the employee in a different way to talk about webinars that we have going on. These are the same webinars that we have every month, so it’s not like it’s something new. It’s just a new channel to the employee. So, we wanted to see, you know, if it increased, attendance.

And, I’m not sure if the video can play just yet, but, basically, it’s, you know, this avatar just talking about our webinars for the month of June. And, we did end up seeing, about fifty percent more registrations because we would send out the video link regularly to employees, and so it was top of mind. And all they had to do was watch it one time, and they knew, you know, the the content, they knew the topic, and when to promote it to the right member. So, again, it was a very effective campaign.

You know, the avatar is basically just, you know, talking about the content of, the webinar and encouraging the employee to talk to members about it.

Very cool. So you can see the avatar. This is how it looks in this example. That’s an AI generated person delivering this message. And, again, you have the option to create this person.

You could also do AI generated voices, where if you just wanted to have the narration but not the but not the actual person speaking on screen, Sunday Sky gives you the flexibility to do that. And but, again, it works very, very similar. You have a you have a library of voices to choose from, or you have you can create your own custom clone voices, and it can work very, very similarly.

But it’s it’s very realistic. It’s it’s and it’s a very practical way to add a personal touch to video communications like these without having to take the time to record, certainly, different, busy executives at your company and other leaders, that otherwise, you know, just a few years ago, that would have been the only option. Now you can just create an avatar. And really creating a video like this, it takes no more time than it does to create any other type of video within Sunday Skies.

In fact, in some cases, it can take a little bit less time. So a very practical option. Again, just another example of the flexibility of the type of content that not only, you know, just Sunday Sky in particular, but just the way artificial intelligence and video technology has advanced and evolved over the past few years, really, has really made stuff like this very accessible and very easy for anyone to be able to generate. And and just a few years ago, you know, that wasn’t possible.

But, again, the video you’re seeing here, it’s one hundred percent on brand. Anyone could have created this. It looks like something that, that that is, is is from I think Financial. It’s an official video, but it’s something that was created, within the Sundae Sky platform.

So I think those that covers our examples, and I think now we’re just going to get into the last stage of of of today’s presentation and talking about impact and results. And, you know, we’ll start because we’ve been talking about Sunday Sky. We’ll talk about Sunday Sky first. And, you know, when you’re be you’re able to create video not only in a impactful and and professional manner, but also at scale and at volume faster than you ever could before, not only easier, but faster.

You’re here to see some really impactful result results. And, Steven, you’ve been talking about those throughout. You just mentioned one, the retention factor. You know, this isn’t something this is something just that we’ve known about video for a long time that people just retain information at a better rate when they can they can see it, they can hear it, they can watch it versus when they just read it.

So that that that that’s that is the an example of that sort of, like, qualitative and quantitative value that you can get from Sunday Sky videos.

But here, you know, the the fact that it’s, again, very easy, intuitive for any user to be able to create video, you know, it allows you to create more video content more quickly and then seeing value that speed to value a little bit faster with video creation time, which otherwise would have just taken much longer or someone else would have had to do it. You would have had to pay somebody else to do it. It could have taken weeks, and now it takes hours or it takes minutes. Like, that’s the type of, value that we see from a lot of our customers. Steven, I’d love for you to just share a little more insight into any of these, results here, that I Financial is seeing, as a result of using more video content with Sunday Sky.

Yeah. Yeah. So I think just like everyone else, you know, listening to today’s, webinar, we’re trying to find younger people to work at I think Financial, and they are all used to using this device. Right?

I mean, they’re they were raised on it. They produce videos all the time. And so Sunday Sky, that platform is that simple, that it’s something, you know, easy for them to, you know, use, you know, from start to finish. So I’ll give you a a specific example.

So we, created a video last week that I asked an employee, how long did it take you to, you know, create this From copy where you actually go through and create the content of it, we produce a draft that then gets routed to a review committee, and then a final draft is, performed. So this is an employee who is who is younger, familiar with this technology.

She indicated that it took her just under an hour from start to finish. So we’re not just talking about using the platform itself to, you know, to put this all on the platform probably only took her about fifteen minutes, but that entire process was cut down, you know, so that she’s only spending, you know, just under an hour working on that. At the low end, we tend to produce, like, three Sunday Sky videos a month. At the high end, it’s, twelve. But the great thing is we’ve got three departments that are basically creating content for the organizational needs from employees out to members. And so, you know, it’s a very consistent way for us to get messages across the organization.

A lot of times, we’ve also found that a video that we were planning to use that was for a member, we don’t have to recreate that video for an employee. We can basically just have the employee, you know, learn about the product or service process or procedure through that same video, And so it’s really saving some time there.

Love to hear that. Thank you so much, Steven, for sharing this. And now let’s move on. Let’s circle back to Engageware.

Yeah. So in terms of the results with Engageware, you know, I think that you’ve realized significant value centered around higher volume, improved member efficiency, you know, definitely really great adoption of Ask Connect, which is employee knowledge management. So, Steven, I’m just curious, you know, what stands out to you the most out of these results?

Yeah. I I think, you know, it hits on a few different levels. You know? First of all, for our employees, let’s start there. Because, again, if we’re trying to attract a younger workforce, they’re not gonna stick around if we’re not using current technology. And so for once we, you know, let an employee know, look. Everything that we trained you on today, you can find in Ask Connect.

Whenever they see a product rollout that we reference, the materials are on ask connect, you know, it gives them more confidence. And so I think then, you know, that’s where we end up seeing a better member experience because that employee, even if they don’t know the answer to something, they can search ask connect, and get an answer for that within seconds. On the flip side of that, you know, as our membership learns easier ways for, you know, them to interact with the organization, they realize that we’re doing this to make their lives better. And so, you know, not as you mentioned, there are some very crucial industries, health care, you know, being one of them that offer appointment scheduling.

And that’s, you know, not only to manage the time of the provider, but also to provide a better, you know, experience for the user. And so I think our members have seen that as well, in our commitment to giving them an excellent member experience. And so that’s why a lot of these appointments, that are being made in our kiosk, you know, members may come in for one thing and then, you know, realize, hey. I just walked in and this lobby is full.

I can just go ahead and schedule an appointment to come back tomorrow, you know, at three thirty when I can leave, you know, work, earlier. And then, you know, that in turn is helping us, you know, overall reduce some of the congestion that’s in our branches, but as well, you know, help us manage that human capital better and know what employees we need at what branches during what time in order to continue that excellent member experience.

Yeah. It really as you’re talking, I just keep imagining just this big domino effect of everything and how, you know, with Sunday Sky and Engageware, you have these tools that are really able to support that ecosystem for the member.

That’s great. Thank you so much, Steven.

So, Steven, I know that, you know, it’s great that you have this these results, and what we’ve talked about is really that that impact to the member experience and what they you know, there’s all these things going on behind the scenes. You know, what would be the feedback and some of the testimonials from your from your members? So do you wanna share a little bit about some of the sentiment in terms of how this has been, reflected in terms of that experience?

Yeah. Well, I I think that as we start to offer our digital first, channels, you know, with our membership, it just offers overall efficiency, you know, and employees and members are happier. We if you go to any of our branch, entities on Google, you will see that member now comment on, you know, what good service that they’re getting from, you know, particular employees just like, you know, here. These are actually excerpts from some of those reviews.

And so, you know, it’s it’s resulting in what we hoped it would, a better member experience. You know? And if people are willing to share these testimonials, we all know that then other people will look at those and say, oh, maybe, you know, I should, you know, think about, I think, financial, you know, for my next needs. So it’s definitely helping us grow. It’s helping us manage our business better and, helping us reach our mission.

Alright.

So thank you, Steven, Christine, and Brendan, everyone, for joining us. Let’s go ahead and start the q and a. It does look like we had a few questions come in. I think we have time for one or two.

So I’m gonna start with this one.

On the Engageware note, so how have your staff responded to implementing tools like appointment scheduling and kiosk? Do they feel like it’s helped their day to day?

Steven, do you wanna answer that one?

Yeah. I’ll I’ll take that one. So, we did have to educate them on, you know, why we’re doing this. And to be honest, a lot of employees felt like it was intuitive.

You know, they would look, you know, out of their MSA office and see, you know, all of these members, you know, lined up, you know, waiting to be served. And, you know, some of them were impatient, and so they understood that, you know, appointment scheduling was really going to help them deliver a better member experience. So it wasn’t really like a hard sell. We did have to train them on how to use the kiosk, which, you know, Engageware has some excellent, self-service training, but they also supplement that with, in person training when you onboard with them.

So we had a lot of confidence there. And so employees, definitely felt like it was a tool for them to, be able to, you know, deliver better member service. I think, you know, another point here is, you know, we all have a lot of times challenges wherein those busy branches, employees, you know, may not get to take a break or get lunch or whatever. And so it also helped us block out some of those times where we know, hey.

You know, our employees do need, you know, some some time off, you know, or they get exhausted, you know, working a full, you know, eight hours with, you know, like, a thirty minute lunch or whatever. So it also helped us improve their employee satisfaction from that perspective being able to, you know, not offer appointment scheduling during certain times of the day. So we we also don’t tend to offer them right at the beginning of the day because, again, employees are, you know, kind of getting caught up on things. Right?

We also don’t allow them, you know, at the end of the day so that employees can catch up on anything that they need to. So just a lot of flexibility there within, the platform.

Great.

Okay. We have one. Let’s take one more question. This one’s about Sunday Sky.

So where have you seen the biggest impact from utilizing, personalized video for financial institutions?

I mean, I can I yeah?

Steven, please please go ahead and tell me what we’re about.

From a user perspective, it’s that we can roll out more videos. You know? I mean, because if we’re having to hire a company to produce a video, you know, then we lose some of the control of that process. It’s gonna take longer. It’s gonna be more expensive. So for us, you know, having a tool like Sunday Sky, we can produce more content. So it’s a it’s a win for us.

And I would just add for financial institutions broadly because we haven’t talked about personalization too much. But, you know, what we see it is when there’s there’s content needs to go out to a lot of people, and you’re able to personalize those messages down to the individual based on what you know about them, Whether it’s, you know, loyalty rewards programs to quarterly or annual roundups or, you know, all sorts of different things that you may wanna be sending communications about, you can send out a creative video, but then you can securely plug into your data sources or just upload a CSV, and that video will automatically personalize to all those different folks.

So that’s where we see a lot of companies, especially on the financial services side, where you have a lot of individual members, where you have a lot where it’s that real sort of, like, b to c engagement, there’s a lot of individual people that you wanna reach. And you want all of those messages. They should be tailored specifically to them. So those types of programs are the types of ways that we see a lot of financial institutions beyond, certainly, credit unions, but also the other financial institutions as well using personalized video, most often.

Right. Thank you. Alright. So it looks like we’re getting close to time here. So let’s move to the next slide.

So we have a few valuable resources to share for you guys. Feel free to grab your phones and scan the QR codes on the screen to access them.

Across the top, we’ve included two Engageware resources.

So there’s an appointment scheduling buyer’s guide and another ebook on the payoff of employee knowledge management.

And then on the bottom row, you’ll find a quick five minute product tour of Sunday Sky so you can see it in action. And then on the right, there’s an overview of Sunday Sky’s video capabilities for financial services.

So to wrap up, thank you all for joining us, and thanks to Steven, Christine, and Brendan, for all of your great insights on how digital strategies help bring these moments that matter to life.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us.

So thank you guys again, and have a wonderful day.

Thank you.

Thank you.