Text messagingThe “text me” refrain increasingly communicated at credit unions seems louder lately. Berkeley, Calif.-based Shastic signed five new customers in January for Elle, its conversational text messaging platform for credit unions.
The recent Shastic growth follows the fintech company’s early launch of Elle, the conversational text messaging platform, an expansion of the firms’ automation services for delivering efficient, real-time message communication between credit unions and members.
Among the credit unions signing with Shastic, a SaaS company specializing in productivity solutions for customer engagement, loan generation, and workflow automation, are the $1.08 billion Lompoc, Calif.-based CoastHills Credit Union, the $1.97 billion Mount Pleasant, Wis.-based Educators Credit Union Educators Credit Union, and the $336 million Minnetonka, Minn.-based Mill City Credit Union.
Traditionally, financial institutions communicated with their clients by phone or email. Shastic noted unfortunately this process made it difficult to quickly collect client information, delayed the time-sensitive process to approve applications, and impeded their operations with menial tasks.
Today’s consumers expect faster, more effective banking services. More than 50% of business customers prefer to receive text messaging over their current form of communication for both customer service and support, according to Shastic. On average, open rates for text messaging sit at an impressive 99%. This is much higher than email, which has an average open rate of 32%, according to HubSpot.
Using Elle, credit unions empower teams to give members actionable information in a more engaging way, according to Shastic. Educators Credit Union, for example, currently takes advantage of the secure and low-cost text messaging platform. ECU experienced a substantial increase in member engagement after adopting the platform with more than half of ECU’s members responding by text message in less than 90 seconds. In addition to having a better way to service members daily, ECU also sees SMS as a more cost-effective way to scale their operations.
“Elle was intuitive and incredibly easy for us to get up and running,” ECU marketing strategist Emily Olson said. “It gave us the ability to help members through the loan process using the communication channel that’s most convenient for them.”
“Elle was built as a digital engagement solution to meet the growing demand by banking consumers. Shastic’s Joseariel Gomez explained. “This platform levels the playing field for credit unions needing an agile, affordable two-way text messaging solution designed for credit unions.”
The numbers, according to Shastic, for the credit unions offering Elle’s text messaging solution: a 70% text message response rate from both members and non-members; 60% of those who replied, responded in 90 seconds or less; and 69% of those who received text message communication then completed applications, with 50% of these individuals approved for loans.
Going forward, the Shastic team will launch several new integrations and continue to better serve the growing number of credit unions transitioning to meet the rising demand for digital banking services.
