Tag: Digital Innovation

How to Attract and Retain Millennial Customers Through 2030

In a nutshell 🥥 Millennial customers expect convenient, personalized, and digitally enabled banking experiences. Banks and credit unions can attract and retain them by offering higher-quality service, self-serve digital interactions, real-time appointment scheduling, personalized support, and direct feedback opportunities that reduce friction and strengthen loyalty. As the first generation to be raised with the absolute ease of technology – the norm of face-to-face interactions for banks and credit unions has shifted. Because of this, banks and credit unions face a difficult challenge; how do you attract and retain millennial customers who want to minimize interaction, and crave an enhanced digital experience. For those up to meeting this challenge – it could signify their greatest opportunity for growth.  Over the next 10 years, 75% of customers seeking wealth management and personal financial services will be millennials. This is a concerning statistic for many finserv organizations since the millennial customer shows a number of differences in the way they prefer to interact with organizations compared to older generations. We will discuss the differences in how to communicate with a millennial customer and how an appointment management solution can help attract the up and coming generation and reduce churn. How can Coconut Software upgrade your institution’s digital presence and capabilities? Download the Ultimate Guide to Digitally Transforming the Appointment Experience today. Attract and Retain Millennial Customers – The Challenges for Credit Unions and Banks 1. Millennials Have Higher Customer Service Expectations Millennials, a tech-savvy generation, have grown up in the midst of the digital transformation and are used to the benefits that come with it. The digital experience has enabled many industries to increase the quality of the services they provide in terms of customer experience, and millennials have become accustomed to premium treatment. Financial Services is one of the oldest industries in the world, and also one of the last to begin the digital transformation, leaving many traditional banks still unprepared for younger generations’ digital expectations. This is causing the millennial customer to seek out businesses that provide them with convenient digital service that they desire. 2. Millennials Prefer to Interact With Brands Digitally Millennials and Gen Z are digital-centric generations, meaning they rely strongly on technology in their daily lives, specifically their smartphones, and expect seamless digital banking access. In fact, 67% of Millennials and 63% of Gen Z primarily use mobile banking apps. Millennials expect immediate, online access to their finserv provider, whereas older generations were very comfortable picking up the phone or waiting for their service provider to get back to them. These younger customers, more than other generations, are asking themselves, “if I can schedule a massage, order groceries and buy flights online, why can’t I book an appointment with my bank?” And because they often have fewer entrenched financial relationships, they’re more willing to switch when that access falls short. 3. Millennials Won’t Stay Loyal Just Because You Have a History Millennials are 2 to 3 times more likely to change service providers than any other generation. Trust in traditional banks is lower among Gen Z than Millennials. They are used to a digital experience with enhanced customer service, and they are not worried about leaving a current provider for a financial institution that meets all of their needs and reflects their values, which is especially important to younger members. And soon, those customers will make up the majority of the workforce. In fact, 30% of millennials report they have left their current bank or credit union because they found another finserv organization that provided a better experience. Attract and Retain Millennial Customers – How Appointment Management Solutions Help  The increasing demands of the millennial customer are concerning to the legacy structure of the finserv industry, however, there are ways to keep the value of your business interactions while implementing solutions to attract the growing population of millennial customers and reduce churn, especially as younger audiences crave seamless digital experiences rather than generic digital upgrades. An appointment management tool offers multiple solutions to your millennial customer problem, and the right digital tools should simplify banking while preserving a personal touch. Paired with stronger appointment management, personalized financial advice can be a meaningful differentiator for banks and credit unions. 1. Improve Customer Experience With New Insight Into Customer Behavior When your organization leverages an appointment management solution, you will gain additional insight that supports more personalized digital experiences based on the customer’s behavior and history with your organization. When you have an integrated scheduling platform, your customer-facing staff can access all the information collected during the appointment-booking. This will allow them to prepare for their upcoming appointment with the customer, and 68% of younger consumers now expect AI-driven financial tools and personalized recommendations. That preparation helps staff align advice to a customer’s current life stage, whether they are building savings or, as 32% of Gen Z report, focused on starting an emergency fund, enabling them to provide the enhanced customer experience the millennial customer craves. 2. Give Your Customers What They Want With Real-Time Online Appointment Scheduling With an integrated appointment management solution, you can offer real-time, 24/7 online appointment scheduling as part of seamless digital banking experiences for younger consumers. This will allow your customers to schedule in-person interactions with your organization whenever and wherever they want, minimizing human interactions with your organization, which the millennial customer loves to avoid. Younger consumers also value unique digital tools that help members manage day-to-day needs, including automated savings and financial education tools, especially since 46% of Gen Z feel stressed about finances regularly. Additionally, when your customers book appointments online, they will also receive reminders on their smartphones, which the average millennial checks about 43 times a day, reducing the chances of no-show appointments. 3. Keep Customers Loyal With Direct Feedback With an appointment management solution, your organization can send out automated follow-up emails to customers to gain feedback on the experience they had, helping you meet younger members where they are and strengthen your credit union’s reputation. People

What is Video Banking Software? A Guide for Banks and Credit Unions

In a nutshell 🥥 Video banking software helps banks and credit unions deliver secure, face-to-face financial conversations from anywhere. This article explains why video banking is growing, how it works, the differences between purpose-built video banking software and standard video conferencing tools, and the features institutions should consider when choosing a solution. Video banking software is growing in popularity every day, with the vast majority of consumers who try it rating the experience highly. In fact, 57% of customers want all products, services, and support available digitally, and more than 85% of video banking users say they’d be willing to use it again. Clearly, video banking is the way of the future. Without it, banks and credit unions won’t be able to grow new membership and retain those tech-savvy or long-distance customers who come to expect modern tools from their financial institutions. Still, finding the right video banking software for your institution can be tricky: How do you compare one app to another? What are the top features to look for? How does video banking even work? To answer these questions and more, we’ve written an extensive guide to video conferencing for banking. We’ll explain the most important video banking features, how to find the right solution for your financial institution, and more. P.S. Looking for more video banking tips? Learn to build a strategy, roll out the software, and more—check out our ultimate video banking guide. What is a Video Banking System? Video banking solutions let clients and customers speak “face to face” with your staff members from their phone, laptop, computer, or other mobile device. This allows your team to provide high-quality financial services and build relationships from anywhere.  Video banking software differs from standard video conferencing tools, which aren’t designed to complete the entire appointment process from one screen. In contrast, video banking software offers an end-to-end meeting booking tool, providing appointment reminders, post-appointment follow-ups, and more. It also provides analytics workflows to help financial institutions refine their processes and offer a better customer experience. Video banking platforms offer banks, credit unions, and their customers/members benefits like: Meet demands for more convenience and flexibility Enhance customer or member experience Increase workforce efficiency Create more opportunities for revenue and growth Improve data tracking and forecasting How Does Video Banking Software Work? Video banking connects customers and members to advisors in many ways. They can connect across devices, distances, and time zones, enjoying secure financial conversations and completing transactions in a single session, with a single screen. The best solutions don’t require video banking apps or driver downloads. Instead, they work from a web browser and allow any device to be used to conduct the appointment. It’s a streamlined, no-hassle solution that prevents delays and tech issues for both parties. Video appointments aren’t just for virtual calls, either. They can be used in-branch, across any number of devices. Here are the three options for video appointments: 1. In-Branch: Dedicated Video Call Booths Video call booths give customers and members all the privacy and security of a traditional in-branch visit, with the convenience to connect with a specialist anywhere. This saves customers from potentially long drives to meet the specialists at another location, or long waits to meet the specialists at their local branch. The booth comes equipped with quality audio, strong internet connectivity, and the privacy needed for banking appointments. Here’s a quick guide of all the methods for meetings aka video booth, both virtual, etc. 2. Hybrid: Employees Onsite, Customers or Members are Remote When customers want more freedom from banking appointments, a hybrid approach may be the best solution. With this option, staff stays in-branch or at a call center, while customers and members call in remotely from their home, office, or even from their car. Specialists can be anywhere and everywhere, without traveling back and forth to other branches. They might even be able to see more clients and better plan their day. Staff members can take calls from their desks or set up a laptop at a dedicated video banking cubicle. They can verify customers’ identities by asking security questions and having members show their government ID over the camera. Alternatively, customers could log into the video call using a single sign-on (SSO) integration. 3. Remote: Everyone Meets Virtually Looking for the most flexible video banking solution? With fully remote video appointments, both your customers and staff have the freedom and convenience of mobility. Staff members can work from just about anywhere, and financial institution’s can reduce costs by launching a fully virtual branch. Just keep in mind—staff members should still maintain a level of professionalism, taking calls in private, quiet places that represent your institution well. What Can You Do on Video Banking? With the right video banking system, what can’t you do? Depending on your goals, you can offer a wide range of video meeting types, including: Member Onboarding and Account Setup With new members and customers, it’s important to get that face-to-face interaction. Video onboarding is more memorable than a phone call, but more convenient than commuting. Meetings for Specific Products or Services Sometimes, customers already know what they need—but they don’t want to travel a long distance or wait in long lines to get it. In these circumstances, your financial institution can allow customers and members to connect with a specialist to discuss specific products and services (Think: loans and savings accounts). Customer Support and Account Questions In a competitive industry, customer support is more important than ever. Take your customer experience to the next level by offering video customer support and walkthroughs. (Bonus points if you can set up chat-to-video options online.) Contract Walkthroughs Contracts can be difficult for customers and members to understand. Sometimes it’s helpful to explain complex topics simply by going over them together via video. Screensharing and co-browsing solutions can be incredibly helpful here. Virtual Workshops and Seminars Want to offer financial advice at scale? You can pull off virtual workshops and seminars with ease

Agentic AI in Banking: Practical Use Cases for Retail Banks

In a nutshell 🥥 Over the last few decades, banking and financial institutions have invested millions of dollars in automating their processes across customer-facing front offices and back-office functions. This includes credit scoring, onboarding, servicing, and dispute resolution supporting the customer journey. Smart technology is operating behind the screen at banks and credit unions. That’s Agentic AI banking. 52% of financial institutions were already testing or actively using agentic AI at the beginning of 2026, and this percentage continues to rise each month.  This growing tech tool is designed to support the core banking stack’s multi-step processes in real-time without requiring repetition or waiting in line. They’re available around the clock, and are scalable across banking operations. A recent report by the Boston Consulting Group found that top AI-first banks are using AI to perform 70% to 80% of repetitive tasks and even 30% to 50% of the reasoning jobs. Let’s dive deeper into the implications, and what it means for consumers, too. What is Agentic AI and Why Does It Matter in Banks? Agentic AI is a smart computerized helper that can plan, reason, and act on its own. It does’t require approval at every stage (which saves on time and human energy) and aims for certain outcomes. In a nutshell, it can complete multi-step workflows with minimal human intervention. Traditional AI systems were only capable of following certain rules. They required human intervention at each step. But this is not the case with Agentic AI. An agentic AI system can analyze data, make a decision, act on the decision, and also learn from the outcome. That’s why banks refer to it as “autonomous AI agents for banks‘, which make valuable partners instead of simple digital assistants.  Case in point: When a customer discovers an unknown transaction, the agent confirms their identity, checks the transaction history, locks down the card, and files a dispute autonomously. Why Agentic AI Matters Agentic AI matters for banks because customers demand faster service, fraud is rising, and bank costs keep climbing. It tackles these challenges head-on by automating complex tasks end-to-end. Another case in point: Let’s say that when a customer spots an unknown transaction. An agentic AI system can verify their identity, review transaction history, block the card, and file a dispute, all without human help. McKinsey reports that agentic AI could cut banking costs by 15–20%, a significant change in the economics of operating a bank.  Automation allows carrying out easy tasks. But it can’t effectively cope with situations requiring planning and decision-making. It is at this point that banking automation supported by agentic AI becomes very effective. In contrast to just doing some routine activity, agents can figure out what needs to be done and then do everything needed to accomplish a workflow. Practical Use Cases for Retail Banks 1. Smart Fraud Detection and Financial Crime Prevention The problem of fraud is not limited to work hours, and each situation requires an immediate response. An alert that occurs in the middle of the night should not wait until the morning. A bank’s AI agents watch these transactions around the clock, detect any abnormalities in the transactions, and adjust to changing situations. While other rules-based AI solutions produce numerous false alarms, agentic artificial intelligence adds contextual information to each transaction. It takes into account history, behavioral trends, and geography (and more).  If one uses a card that belongs to a customer in a foreign country, then the AI would be able to do the following: Stop the transaction Analyze past account transactions Reach out to the customer Verify their identity Authorize or deny the transaction This leads to quicker containment of fraudsters, fewer false positives, and a much lower cost per investigation. In order for the AI-based fraud detection system in banking to work best, it is important that agents work out of a single customer context. For more, check out this source: Infovision 2. 24/7 Financial Helper One of the coolest parts of agentic AI banking is how it can help you directly. No more waiting on hold for hours, as these autonomous agents are always on and ready to help. Say Goodbye to Long Waits Many banks are now using smart chatbots that are far more advanced than the old ones. These aren’t just answering simple questions. They can handle entire tasks.  For example, if you have a problem with a purchase on your card, the agent can find the transaction, check for fraud, fill out the dispute form, and even send you a confirmation.  All of this happens in minutes, not days. This is a type of AI banking automation that saves you, your advisors, and your customers a lot of time and stress.  Gartner projects that by 2029, agentic AI will be able to handle 80% of typical customer service problems on its own, saving an estimated 30% on operating expenses.  3. Agentic Credit Decision-Making and Loan Origination The main application of agentic AI in consumer banks is loan origination. Identity verification, document processing, affordability analysis, policy verification, and underwriting are all part of it. This typically involves three to five distinct systems, each requiring human intervention. An agent-based system may now handle this entire chain of tasks in an automated fashion, from the acquisition of account information through the classification of the required documents, policy compliance check, preparation of a credit summary for an underwriter, and launching of the approval process. As highlighted in the BCG/OpenAI report, it results in “a more transparent and faster credit review process.” 4. Operations Workflows Orchestration For most banks, the systems remain disconnected: core technologies, CRMs, payment gateways, and compliance solutions. The gap between them is filled by manual handovers that lead to delays or even mistakes. Agentic AI bridges systems and orchestrates across all of them. Actions are triggered, data is moved, and complex workflows are executed without any human interference at each stage. Thus, an agent is capable of executing a payment request, checking the balance, completing

Customer Experience in Banking: Top Trends to Drive Growth

In a nutshell 🥥 Customer experience is the single most powerful growth lever for banks and credit unions. Here, we cover what banking customer experience really means, why simplicity is the secret ingredient, and how financial institutions can improve it across four key areas: streamlining the branch experience, connecting online and offline services, providing the right mix of services, and communicating clearly. Make sure to include self-service appointment booking, video banking, omnichannel communication, biometric authentication, peer-to-peer payments, and financial literacy tools, all designed to put customers and members in the driver’s seat. There are seemingly infinite strategies for financial institutions to drive growth in the modern age of banking. For example, a better marketing strategy, a wider range of financial products, and a more streamlined approach to staff scheduling can all go a long way to helping a bank or credit union grow. But if you’re looking for the single most impactful way to drive growth in banking, it’s time to prioritize the customer experience. According to  a recent survey of 1,700 consumers , 92% say quality customer service is the most important factor when determining where to open a bank account.  Another 63% of consumers say  they’re not likely to switch away from a bank that offers great customer service, and 78% say they’ll return for similar services. It’s hard to overemphasize the importance of customer experience in banking. Financial institutions that optimize customer experience grow faster, have higher NPS scores, and have better retention rates than banks that don’t put the same emphasis on customer experience. So how can your bank or credit union provide the absolute best banking experience to your customers and members? And what does customer experience in banking mean, exactly? In this post, we’re exploring how to improve customer experience in banking. We’re also delivering the top customer experience trends to drive growth and help you beat out the competition. What Is Customer Experience in Banking? So, what is banking customer experience? Ultimately, it’s the way members and customers feel about your financial institution. No matter how much effort you’re putting into the customer experience, it all comes down to your client’s perception. If your clients don’t have a great opinion of you, then you’ve missed the mark and won’t see the growth you’re seeking.  Customer experience encompasses every interaction a client has with your financial institution, from simple daily activities to one-on-one meetings. Each one of these interactions has an impact on their opinion about your bank or credit union. Some of the most common customer experience touchpoints include: Paying a bill online Using an ATM Withdrawing money Meeting with an advisor Opening a bank account Visiting an FIs website Standing in line at a branch Meeting via video conferencing Talking to an advisor over the phone All of these touchpoints matter. If customers and members repeatedly have positive interactions with your bank or credit union, they’ll develop loyalty to your institution and continue to be a customer. If they have ongoing negative interactions with your institution, they’ll develop a poor perception of your bank or credit union, and find another institution to bank with. What Makes the Best Banking Experience? So what makes a great banking experience? And how can a bank’s customer experience be improved? Is AI taking over banking technology? For concrete answers, let’s turn to the data. We’ve studied many customer experience reports to reveal one common thread: it’s all about keeping things simple. That’s right. Sometimes, less is more, and adding more services and more technology isn’t necessarily going to improve a customer’s perception of your financial institution. You’ve probably experienced this phenomenon yourself — if a brand changes its offerings or requires you to use complicated technology to maintain your services, you may just find yourself frustrated and ready to ditch the brand altogether. On the other hand, an organization that provides simple, intuitive customer experiences is more likely to keep you around for the long run. So how can you keep it simple, while still improving the customer experience in banking? Let’s walk through some of the key trends and examples. Streamline Your Branch Experience One of the first steps to building a better customer experience is to streamline your branch experience. To accomplish this, it’s important to look at both the little things (How are customers greeted when they come in? Where do they get in line? Do they know how long the line will be?) and the bigger picture (Do you offer a fast lane? Are your advisors efficient and friendly?) Here are four ways to streamline the customer experience at your bank or credit union: 1. Make Your Branch Feel More Welcoming Your customers and members come to your branch because they have a need. Maybe they’re opening a new account, applying for a mortgage, or simply coming to withdraw cash. In any case, it’s in your best interest to make the experience as welcoming as possible. All the little details matter here, down to the lighting and the temperature in the room. Even if it’s in their subconscious, customers will note how they feel when they’re in your branch. If they feel comfortable, calm, and welcomed, they’ll be more likely to return. And if they feel uneasy, irritated, or unwelcomed, they’ll be quick to move to another bank that offers a better in-branch experience. You can make your branch feel more welcoming by allowing clients to sign in on their own via a tablet kiosk, providing wait times, and making physical changes, such as: Adding ambient lighting Shifting the floor transitions Installing colored carpeting to guide visitors Removing stanchions Removing bulletproof glass Removing the counter altogether Adding “flex desks” and call booths All of these simple changes can go a long way to make the branch more comfortable for your customers and members. 2. Allow Your Clients to Book Their Own Appointments When you want to improve the customer experience, you need to put your clients in the driver’s seat more

AI Workforce Management for Banks: Smarter Staffing. Better Service.

In a nutshell 🥥 Walk into any bank branch on a busy Monday morning, and you will see it right away. Long lines. Tired staff. Customers check their watches every minute. Now walk into a branch that plans its day the smart way, and everything feels calm and easy. What makes this big difference? AI is changing how banks plan and manage staff. A recent study found that 81% of financial institutions now use AI in some part of their daily work, and staffing is one of the fastest-growing areas.  Banks are starting to use smart technology to solve this puzzle. They are using AI to look at appointment data, walk-in traffic, and even local events to predict what will happen next. This is not about replacing humans; instead, it’s about helping them do their jobs better and making the customer feel like a VIP.  Let’s dive in and see how this smart change actually works. Why Banks Need a Smarter Way to Manage Staff Bank branches face a simple problem with a complex answer: customer demand does not stay the same all day. A branch may be quiet in the morning and crowded after lunch. Monday may bring more visitors than Friday. A promotion, local event, pay cycle, or seasonal rush can also change customer traffic. Yet many banks still rely on fixed schedules and past patterns to plan staff coverage. That approach can leave too many employees available during slow periods and too few during busy ones. AI offers a better way to handle these changes. With workforce management banking tools, financial institutions can study appointment data, walk-ins, transactions, staffing levels, and other signals. AI can then help managers understand when demand may rise or fall.  Match staffing levels with expected customer demand Reduce long waiting times Balance employee workloads Plan around employee skills Adjust schedules when demand changes Provide managers with more information about staffing The objective here is not to remove people. Rather, it is to remove the guesswork from the process so that the people can spend more time helping the clients. How AI Turns Staffing Guesswork Into Smart Planning Staffing traditionally involves spreadsheets, calendars, and managerial expertise. They are important; however, they might not paint a comprehensive picture of future requirements. AI can help to aggregate more data. It can analyze data about appointments, clientele, staff availability, branch operations, and necessary services. AI Can Predict Busy Periods Demand forecasting is one of the most useful features of AI workforce management. Rather than just querying the traffic volume at a certain branch on the previous Tuesday, AI allows for the prediction of traffic volume on the upcoming Tuesday. For instance, there is likely to be an increase in mortgage appointments in specific months in some branches. AI is able to spot this trend and help managers to plan for adequate mortgage specialists. Better Schedules Can Reduce Daily Pressure Bank staff scheduling is complicated by many factors that managers must consider, including holidays, absenteeism, meetings, employee availability, and fluctuations in customer demand. Through workforce data, AI is able to make the scheduling process simpler.  Workforce management strategy involves demand forecasting, staffing planning, and shift management. AI tools for scheduling within a workforce management strategy help managers build effective schedules through workforce plans. That can help to eliminate redundant planning efforts. It will allow managers to concentrate more on performance and the needs of their employees. Better Staffing Creates Better Customer Experiences The presence of long queues causes frustration. The customer will be required to repeat their complaint. An advisor may also rush through an important conversation because several people are waiting. These small problems can affect customer trust. Deloitte’s 2026 research found that 71% of surveyed banking customers ranked ease of resolving issues among their top three support priorities. Fast response times followed at 63%. The numbers show why staffing and customer experience should work together. The right employees will be around when needed and can help more quickly. The employees will also have time for the tough problems that need human input. AI Can Match Skills With Customer Needs Not every banking request requires the same type of employee. A customer asking about a basic transaction may need different support from someone discussing a mortgage, business loan, or investment. AI workforce optimization can help banks consider employees’ skills alongside staffing levels. For example, AI can help managers understand the following: Which employees should work during peak hours Which specialists need to be available Where skill gaps may occur When branches need additional support How employee availability matches customer demand AI Workforce Management Also Helps Employees Workforce planning is not only about customers. Employees also require manageable shifts and an appropriate workload. Constant change in shifts leads to stress for employees. Inappropriate staffing will also lead to additional stress for the employee. Employees will continue to cover for unanticipated absences, leading to burnout among employees. AI technology will enable managers to detect staffing issues even before they become emergencies. For example, where AI technology reveals that there is a staffing problem in one of the branches, managers can plan for their coverage in advance. AI Should Make Banking More Human AI and human service may seem like opposites, but they can work well together. AI can study large amounts of information and identify patterns. Employees can understand emotions, build trust, and handle sensitive financial conversations. The strongest approach combines both. Deloitte found that 70% of surveyed banking executives expect AI to shift human agents toward higher-value work. Another 53% expect employees to need stronger technical or analytical skills. The same idea applies to branch teams. When AI handles more planning work, employees can spend more time helping customers with decisions that require human understanding. The Future of Workforce Management Banking Is Predictive AI workforce optimization is a departure from reactionary bank staffing practices. This means that there will be no need to wait until a branch gets too busy to use AI to foresee demand.

Coconut Software Launches Advanced Matching to Help Banks Pair Every Client With the Right Advisor

Coconut Software’s new Advanced Matching helps banks and credit unions move beyond static service menus and “most available” booking, using rules-based routing to match clients based on factors like language, service type, loan size, and lead source. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | SASKATOON, SK, August 13, 2026 — Coconut Software, a leader in Intelligent Branch Solutions for banks and credit unions, today announced the launch of Advanced Matching, a new intelligent routing feature that helps financial institutions connect clients with the best-fit advisor—not simply the next available one. Financial institutions have long relied on Coconut Software to make appointment scheduling more dynamic and personalized. Now, Advanced Matching takes advisor routing beyond service menus and availability, giving institutions greater control over how advisors are matched with clients. Using rules-based intelligence across expertise, language, service type, loan size, region, and lead source, Advanced Matching enables institutions to route each appointment to the advisor best equipped to serve that client and drive the best outcomes. Key capabilities of Coconut Software’s Advanced Matching include: Best-fit advisor routing Match each client to the relevant specialist based on factors like expertise, product type, experience level, language, region, and lead source, rather than just basic availability. Advisor Capacity Multiplier Protect specialist capacity by directing high-value or complex opportunities to the right advisors, while reducing misrouted appointments, rebookings, and wasted advisor time—directly improving cost-to-serve. Simpler, more personalized booking experiences Replace long service menus with intelligent, question-based booking that helps clients find the right service while giving financial institutions greater control over appointment routing. “Advanced Matching is a key part of how Coconut is redefining branch performance,” says Dave Bullock, Chief Product & Engineering Officer at Coconut Software. “It helps institutions increase the chance of tangible outcomes after every appointment, make better use of every advisor hour, and create a more personalized experience—without adding operational strain.” To learn more about Advanced Matching and see it in action, schedule a consultation at coconutsoftware.com. About Coconut Software Coconut Software is redefining how financial institutions run their branches, both physical and virtual, with AI-powered Intelligent Branch Solutions that unify operations, workforce planning, and customer engagement in one platform. By combining AI-driven insights with enterprise-grade appointment scheduling, in-branch queuing, video banking, and workforce optimization, Coconut helps institutions forecast demand, optimize staff allocation, and deliver seamless customer experiences—driving stronger branch performance. Trusted by 200+ banks and credit unions across North America, including RBC, Mountain America Credit Union (MACU), and M&T Bank, Coconut Software helps financial institutions streamline branch traffic, optimize workforce planning, and accelerate revenue growth. Visit coconutsoftware.com to learn more. Media Contact: Coconut Software | media@coconutsoftware.com

Finding the Right Advisor Should Feel More Like a Match Than a Number

In a nutshell 🥥 Advanced Matching helps banks and credit unions move beyond “next available” booking to connect each client with the best-fit advisor based on need, value, and complexity—boosting branch performance, protecting specialist time, scaling personalization without friction, enabling pooled staffing with Meet on Demand, and feeding smarter branch workforce management decisions over time. There’s a difference between getting booked quickly and getting to the right meeting. And for banks, that difference matters more than ever.  Too many appointment-routing experiences still prioritize the next available advisor over the best-fit advisor, even though not every client needs the same complexity, value, or urgency. A retirement planning conversation is not the same as a basic service request, and a high-value lending opportunity should not be treated like a routine appointment. Advanced Matching is built around a better idea: Helping financial institutions connect the right client with the right advisor at the right time. That shift can have meaningful downstream impacts to branch performance, advisor productivity, and client experience. 1. Smarter matching improves branch performance Instead of defaulting to whoever is simply available, institutions can match clients based on factors like skillset, product type, experience level, advisor group, region, language, and lead source—so every appointment has a better chance of landing with the right advisor. The goal is not to add complexity to booking. It is to increase the value of every conversation. By match making clients with advisors, you can increase conversion rates and create the best opportunities to grow wallet share. The result is an operation that is not just more efficient, but more effective. 2. Protect your advisors time for the meetings that matter most Traditional routing stops at availability. A client need comes in, the system narrows the field to advisors who are available and eligible, and the process ends there. But in banking, that is exactly where the more important question should begin: who is the best fit for this conversation? That could mean routing a larger lending opportunity to the advisor best equipped for that loan amount, protecting specialist capacity for more complex needs, or directing high-value opportunities to the senior advisors most likely to convert them. The goal is not just to fill calendars. It is to make sure the right meetings land with the right advisors—so every appointment has a better chance of driving a stronger outcome. 3. Personalization should scale without adding friction The best matching systems do not force clients to navigate more complexity. They hide complexity behind a better experience. Instead of asking customers to sort through long service menus or make decisions based on internal distinctions they do not understand, smarter routing can simplify the path while still producing a more precise match. That is what better personalization should look like in banking: less friction, not more. Banks should be able to offer more nuanced, tailored booking experiences without making customers work harder to get where they need to go. Better fit with less effort is the real win. 4. Pooled staffing to amplify advisor client matching One of the most exciting opportunities is what happens when Advanced Matching is layered with Meed on Demand. Instead of limiting the match to whoever is physically available at a specific branch, banks can expand the pool of possible advisors and connect clients with the true best-fit person, regardless of location. That added flexibility matters. It gives institutions more ways to protect scarce expertise, route higher-value conversations more intelligently, and ensure clients are matched based on need rather than branch boundaries alone. In practice, that means a client can be connected to the right advisor, not just the nearest one. For banks, that could be a major differentiator. Expanding the advisor pool creates more flexibility, improves the odds of a stronger match, and opens the door to a more modern service model, one where the best conversation is not constrained by geography, but enabled by it. 4. Staff branches with more granularity As institutions begin matching appointments based on more specific criteria, they also gain a clearer view into the skills, languages, and experience levels their branches actually need most. That visibility can have a meaningful impact on workforce planning. Instead of relying on assumptions, banks can start making staffing decisions based on real patterns in client demand. And that is where the opportunity gets bigger. Advanced Matching does not just improve routing at the moment. It can also surface the operational insights needed to build stronger branch schedules over time. With Coconut, institutions can use that data to shape more effective workforce plans and better align staffing to the needs of the clients they serve. The result is not only a better match at booking, but a better-prepared branch overall. -> Learn more about Branch Workforce Management. Why Advanced Matching matters In banking, the right conversation with the right advisor can change everything. Advanced Matching helps institutions move beyond basic availability-based routing and toward a smarter model built around fit, efficiency, and better outcomes. And when that model is extended with Meed on Demand, the result is even more powerful: More flexibility for the institution, better experiences for clients, and a stronger competitive advantage for banks. About Coconut Software Coconut Software bridges the gap between complex branch operations and high-value customer engagements with a suite of Intelligent Branch Solutions. Its unified platform combines appointment scheduling, in-branch queuing, and video banking to help financial institutions streamline operations, enhance customer experiences, and empower staff to focus on meaningful, advisory-focused work. Trusted by leading banks and credit unions across North America—including RBC, Mountain America Credit Union (MACU), and M&T Bank — Coconut Software helps institutions optimize workforce planning, manage branch traffic, and achieve revenue goals. Learn more at www.coconutsoftware.com. Media Contact: media@coconutsoftware.com

Deposit Retention Depends on Human Access: A Call to Action for Banks

In a nutshell 🥥 Banks and credit unions can’t outspend neobanks on rates, but they can out-serve them on human access. Deposit retention is less about pricing and more about how quickly and easily customers can reach the right advisor in the moments that matter. By treating speed-to-human advice as a core defensive strategy—and using tools like Meet on Demand and intelligent matching to pool staff and cut wait times—financial institutions can turn their existing branch networks into a powerful moat for loyalty and long-term deposit growth. We’re trained to think about banking as offense.  Deposit growth. Customer growth. New account targets. Walk into almost any planning session at a bank or credit union and the scoreboard is about what you’re adding. Obviously, growth matters. It’s the lifeblood of any institution, and it’s exciting and easy to measure. I’m not here to make the argument that financial institutions shouldn’t focus on growth – of course they should; it’s extremely important. But in the daily conversations I have with banking and credit union leaders, there’s a quieter half of the game that gets far less attention, and in today’s environment it may matter more: defense. Deposit retention. Customer loyalty. Keeping the relationships you already fought hard to win. The Quiet Crisis Nobody’s Budgeting For Right now, defense is under real pressure. Everyone in this industry is talking about the flight of capital, deposits, and memberships to neobanks, fintechs, and megabanks: the high-APY savings accounts, the six-figure points bonuses, the slick apps that make a credit union’s digital experience feel a generation behind. The competitive threat is real, and so is the churn that comes with it.  The instinct, understandably, is to answer offense with offense: match the rate, sweeten the offer, run the campaign. I want to make the case for the other side of the ball. There’s a saying that defense wins championships (Yes, I know how corny that sounds; consider this your permission to roll your eyes). But corny or not, it holds up here. Because here’s the thing about playing defense well: It doesn’t live on your rate sheet. It lives in your experience layer. Stop Playing On The Neobanks’ Turf Let’s be honest with ourselves about the rate fight; it’s one that’s spurred on by the increased competition banks are experiencing with neobanks.  When a neobank dangles another half a percentage point, it can do that because it carries a fraction of your cost to serve. No branches. No tellers. No expensive, in-person infrastructure. That’s not a fair fight, and chasing it basis point for basis point is a race to the bottom that ends with thinner margins and customers who were only ever loyal to the highest number on the screen. So if you can’t reliably win on rate, what do you win on? You win on the thing a neobank structurally cannot replicate: actual people your customers can reach. A network of advisors. Human help, available when it’s needed. That’s not a liability to defend; it’s THE asset. And it points to the real value pillar a neobank can’t build: an exceptional customer experience.  I’m not talking about a slicker app or a faster sign-up flow; those are things a neobank can match, and often beat. I mean the experience of being genuinely taken care of by a person who knows what they’re doing, when it really counts. That’s something only an institution with real people behind it can deliver, and it’s one of the few advantages a fintech company simply can’t out-spend or out-engineer. The whole question is whether a customer can actually get to one of those people in the moment that matters. Why Most Of Your Customers Actually Leave Your Bank Here’s where the rate gets misunderstood. When a customer finally moves their money for a better rate, it’s tempting to log it as them leaving for a financial incentive that you can’t compete with. But I want to make the case that the rate is rarely the whole story. When a customer leaves, usually something happened beforehand, typically that they had a painful experience with their bank or credit union that made them open to leaving in the first place. The promotional rate is just the final nudge on a someone who was already halfway out the door. Here’s what that “something” could typically be: A 45-minute wait in the contact center, only to be routed to an advisor who had no context on the conversation, resulting in the customer re-explaining their entire situation from scratch. A quick question that should have taken five minutes, gets buried under a booking process that makes the customer jump through several different hoops to connect with someone. A lunch-break trip to the branch, only to find out the one person who could actually help, the mortgage specialist, works out of a location across town and isn’t in today. None of those situations show up as a line item. But each point to a moment where the loyalty actually eroded.  And so, the customer who can always get quality service, quickly, tends to ignore the offer in their inbox. But the one who got stranded or misdirected the last time they needed you reads that same offer very differently. Let’s really think about that stranded customer, the one who received a poor experience. By the time they come across a competitor’s promotional offer, the damage is usually already done. The customer who couldn’t reach a human quickly – who sat on hold, got bounced between channels, or waited days for an appointment – is exactly the one primed to take that offer. So, as you can imagine, the rate didn’t create the frustration; it just gave an already-frustrated customer a reason to move onto a competitor with an enticing promise. And that’s exactly what traditional FIs underestimate – it’s not a pricing problem, it’s a speed-to-human problem. When a client can’t get to a real person fast when it counts, the offer in the

Visibility is the Operating System of the Modern Advice Center

In a nutshell 🥥  Coconut Software CEO Katherine Regnier breaks down how the company’s branch workforce management solution moves financial institutions out of archaic spreadsheets and blind planning into a data environment that helps them forecast demand, align the right roles and skills to each branch, and give leaders a smarter way to make staffing decisions without all the guesswork. This kind of innovative visibility gives managers more hours saved, the ability to improve service, and reduce costs. For years, the industry has asked whether the branch still matters. The better question is:  What kind of branch are we building? Branches are not disappearing. Instead, they’re becoming advice centers, places where trust is built, complex conversations happen, and customers still want a human connection. And we’re seeing this in action in the strategies of the North American’s leading enterprise banks. Case in point:, PNC said its branch expansion plan raises its total branch investment to approximately $2 billion by 2030. That shift raises the bar. Branch leaders are not being asked to choose between efficiency and effectiveness. They are being asked to deliver both. That’s why visibility matters. Visibility. It bears repeating. If a branch is going to operate as an advice center, leaders need visibility into demand, skills, utilization, and outcomes. Without it, they are left guessing. And guesswork leads to familiar problems: overstaffed branches, understaffed branches, hours lost to manual scheduling, and bottlenecks that are only noticed once the customer experience is already suffering. Lost opportunity and a decrease in customers loyalty.  That is exactly why we launched Branch Workforce Management. Coconut’s AI-powered solution helps banks and credit unions move beyond spreadsheets and gut-feel planning. It uses  appointment, lobby, and walk-in data to forecast demand, align the right roles and skills to each branch, and give leaders a smarter way to make staffing decisions without all the guesswork. That is more than a scheduling improvement. It is a visibility improvement. It also has measurable operational impact. Branch Workforce Management can help managers reclaim up to eight hours per week otherwise spent on manual scheduling, while delivering demand forecasts with an error rate of under 7.5%, compared with an industry average typically cited at 15–20%. For executive teams under pressure to improve revenue and customer experience while reducing cost, that kind of visibility is not a nice-to-have. It is foundational. I believe this is why so many advice-center strategies feel right conceptually, but stall operationally. The vision is there. Operations leaders have been trying to answer this for years: what should the branch footprint be, what services should each branch offer, and how do we align people, process, and technology to get the most out of that footprint? The challenge is not ambition. The challenge is that the operating model has not kept up with the strategy. Advice centers need visibility and data to function in an optimal way. They need a live, connected understanding of what demand is forming, where capacity exists, where service is breaking down, and where revenue opportunities are being lost.  Yes: It is possible to remove staffing as a back-office exercise and start aligning it to the peaks and valleys of customer demand as a strategic lever for branch performance. Because the modern branch does not win by having more people. It wins by having the right people, in the right place, at the right time, with the right context. That is what makes a branch more efficient. More importantly, it is what makes a branch more effective. And when you get both at the same time, you do not just run a better branch. You build a better advice center.

“You’re Not Understaffed. You’re Just Flying Blind”: A Conversation on Coconut Software’s Branch Workforce Management with Robert Bitten

Robert Bitten is Coconut Software’s Senior Product Manager for Branch Workforce Management (bWFM). With over a decade in the WFM industry—including time building and implementing solutions at some of the largest names in the space—he knows exactly where the old model breaks.  We sat down with him to talk about what bWFM actually is, why spreadsheets can’t cut it anymore, and what Coconut Software is doing differently. Q: Let’s start with the basics. What is branch workforce management (or as we call it around here ‘bWFM’), really? A: At its core, it’s deceptively simple: Having the right number of staff, with the right skills, scheduled at the right time—to match the client demand that’s actually coming in. The key word here is “match.” Most FIs have a demand problem and a supply problem, but they’re operating them independently. Walk-ins are up, appointments are booked, tellers are getting slammed, and the branch manager is staring at a spreadsheet they built three weeks ago, trying to figure out why the floor feels chaotic. Nobody connected those two things. That’s what bWFM is supposed to do. Connect demand to supply. And when you get that right, everything downstream gets better—wait times, member experience, branch performance. Q: Why is this such a pressing issue right now? A: I’ll give you the honest version. A couple years ago, I walked into a branch to open an account. The wait was so long, I left without opening it. Then I walked into a different bank’s branch across the street with no line and opened the new account. The first bank that just lost a customer for life—not because their product was bad, but because they didn’t have the right people on the floor when I showed up. That experience is playing out across thousands of branches every day. It’s not that FIs don’t care about staffing—they do. It’s that the tools they’re using to manage it haven’t kept up. You can’t forecast demand accurately from a spreadsheet. You can’t respond to real-time changes. You can’t answer the question “do I actually need to backfill this open headcount?” when your data lives in four different places and none of them talk to each other. The pressure to get this right has never been higher. Branches are being asked to do more (like drive revenue, deliver a premium experience, justify their existence) with constrained budgets and high attrition. Manual WFM is failing at exactly the moment when FIs need it most. Q: Walk us through why manual WFM specifically breaks down. What does that failure actually look like day-to-day? A: There are two personas who feel this pain most acutely, and it’s worth talking about both. The first is the WFM admin—that is, whoever sits above the branches managing the planning side. Their world is reactive. When something happens, they scramble to make a decision, usually without solid data to back it up. They’re wrangling spreadsheets, chasing down information from silos, and still not getting to a confident answer. And the bigger the organization gets, the worse it gets. Spreadsheets break as operations grow. Compliance becomes harder. Errors multiply. The manual process literally cannot scale. The second is the branch manager. Their job is to deploy their skilled team in the most optimal way to serve the members coming in. But they have no real visibility into what’s coming. They’re scheduling based on gut feel, tribal knowledge, or a pattern they remember from last year. When someone calls in sick, they’re texting and calling people manually to find coverage. When demand spikes, they have no early warning. They’re just reacting. What’s striking is that neither of these people are doing a bad job. They’re just being asked to do something impossible with the tools they have. Q: Where does Coconut’s approach start to look different? A: It starts with the data. And this is where I think we have a genuine advantage. Unlike legacy vendors who lack this context, we have over a decade of rich data on why members visit, what they need, and what the outcomes are. We understand not just the volume of demand, but the specific skills required to meet it—whether that’s a Spanish-speaking advisor, a business banker, or a mortgage specialist. By using this deeper layer of intent and outcome data, we can build staffing models that don’t just fill seats, but actively drive better business results.  A secondary, yet significant, benefit of this approach is the speed of implementation. Because we already own the demand picture, we eliminate the need for the massive, months-long integration projects that often derail traditional WFM deployments. For the teller side, we bring in transaction data via a straightforward integration with your core. But the banker’s side? We already have it. That’s a fundamentally faster path to value. Q: How does the Coconut bWFM solution actually work? What does the product do? A: We think about it as a linear process, three connected phases that move you from reactive to proactive. The first is demand forecasting. Using your historical data (appointments, walk-ins, and teller transactions) we generate daily, weekly, and monthly branch-level forecasts. Not just “here’s how many people walked in last March.” We build in seasonality and trend factors, we differentiate by service type, and we give you a view of exactly which days and hours each branch will be busiest. You can see it at the branch level, the region level, filtered by the service types that matter to you. Our early customers are seeing forecast accuracy well under 5% weighted error. The second phase is workforce recommendations. Once you have the demand forecast, the next question is: how many people do you actually need to meet it? The workforce plan translates that forecast into time-of-day headcount recommendations for both your banker and teller lines. It factors in target service levels and gives you the staffing numbers to hit those goals. And because we’re pulling from engagement data, we can go beyond headcount. We

Coconut Software Launches AI-Powered Branch Workforce Management Solution

In a nutshell 🥥 The new AI-powered offering helps banks and credit unions forecast demand, align the right roles and skills to every branch, and reduce the time managers spend building schedules manually. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | SASKATOON, SK – June 10, 2026 – Coconut Software, a leader in Intelligent Branch Solutions for banks and credit unions, today announced the launch of Branch Workforce Management (bWFM), a new AI-powered solution designed to help banks and credit unions forecast demand, optimize staffing, and improve branch performance. Tailored specifically for financial institutions and built directly into Coconut’s core platform, bWFM helps branch leaders move beyond spreadsheets and gut-feel capacity planning toward a more intelligent, banking-specific approach to workforce optimization through: More Nuanced Planning: Coconut’s bWFM approach goes beyond planning for the right number of employees: It helps financial institutions align staffing based on skills, experience, language, and other factors—so they can better match the needs of each client with the employee best suited to serve them.  Intelligent, Instant Forecasting: The new offering leverages AI to transform demand forecasts into complete, staff-ready schedules in just a few clicks. As a result, branch managers can reclaim up to eight hours per week typically spent on manual scheduling and redirect that time toward coaching employees, serving customers, and improving branch performance. Stronger Staffing Precision: By harnessing appointment, lobby, and walk-in data, Coconut delivers demand forecasts with an error rate of under 7.5%, compared with an industry average that typically falls between 15–20%—giving banks and credit unions a more precise foundation for staffing decisions that reduce overtime costs, lower walk-out rates, and better align coverage to real branch demand. “For years, branch workforce planning has relied on spreadsheets, intuition, and incomplete data,” says Katherine Regnier, CEO of Coconut Software. “With Branch Workforce Management, we’re giving financial institutions a smart way to tie staffing decisions directly to real-time customer demand. The result is stronger utilization rates, improved employee experiences, and more effective branch operations.” The key capabilities of Coconut Software’s Branch Workforce Management (bWFM) include: AI-Driven Demand Forecasting: Turn historical appointments, lobby, and walk-in data into branch-level forecasts to anticipate high-traffic periods and plan coverage accordingly. Smart Schedules: Build branch schedules with a few clicks based on demand forecasts, ensuring the right mix of roles and skills are scheduled for the demand expected. Branch & Staff Performance Insights: Monitor service levels, utilization, and customer outcomes by branch, role, and time period to identify where to invest, coach, or rebalance. “As we bring Branch Workforce Management to market, we’re partnering closely with forward-thinking banks and credit unions to harness AI that synthesizes thousands of data points across branches,” says Dave Bullock, Chief Product & Engineering Officer at Coconut Software. “That gives leaders a more complete view of demand, helps them schedule the right staff for the right work, and strengthens how they connect workforce planning with customer experience across the entire network.” To see Branch Workforce Management (bWFM) in action, and to learn more, schedule a consultation.  About Coconut Software Coconut Software is redefining how financial institutions run their branches, both physical and virtual, with AI-powered Intelligent Branch Solutions that unify operations, workforce planning, and customer engagement in one platform. By combining AI-driven insights with enterprise-grade appointment scheduling, in-branch queuing, video banking, and branch workforce optimization, Coconut helps institutions forecast demand, optimize staff allocation, and deliver seamless customer experiences—driving stronger branch performance. Trusted by 200+ banks and credit unions across North America, including RBC, Mountain America Credit Union (MACU), and M&T Bank, Coconut Software helps financial institutions streamline branch traffic, optimize workforce planning, and accelerate revenue growth. Visit coconutsoftware.com to learn more. Media Contact: Coconut Software | media@coconutsoftware.com

Branch Data and Analytics for Banks: Turning Traffic into Actionable Intelligence

In a nutshell 🥥 Branches are sitting on a goldmine of data they rarely use in real time. Banks and credit unions can turn appointments, walk-ins, queues, and advisor interactions into actionable branch intelligence—spotting peak unpredicted demand, no-show patterns, advisor underutilization, walk-in conversion gaps, and appointment-to-product ratios. Solutions like Coconut Software connect these signals to workforce management, revenue growth, and better customer and member outcomes. From Branch Data Overload to Actionable Intelligence Most banks have plenty of branch data — from appointments and walk-ins to queue times and advisor interactions.  The problem? Much of this data just sits in spreadsheets or static reports, rarely helping branch managers make quick, effective decisions. There’s a big difference between reporting and true branch intelligence. Reports show what happened last month, while intelligence tells you what to do right now. Coconut Software focuses on delivering real-time, predictive insights that branch teams can actually use to improve operations and customer experience. Whether you’re running a big national bank or a smaller credit union, branches are evolving into advisory and engagement centers. That means better data is more important than ever. Below, we’ll explore five key branch signals hiding in plain sight (like unexpected demand spikes and appointment no-shows) and explain what they mean for your revenue and staffing.  From Branch Data Overload to Actionable Intelligence Branch data and analytics for banks includes information collected from appointments, walk-ins, queues, video banking sessions, and advisor interactions across a branch network. Most financial institutions have access to this data.  The challenge is that it often stays stuck in spreadsheets, static reports, and siloed systems that don’t really help with real-time decisions. “Intelligence” differs from reports in that it tells you what to do right now. Banks and credit unions are finding real value here, and opting for solutions like Coconut Software that lean into this insight-forward approach, delivering predictive, prescriptive, and real-time analytics that branch managers can act on, not just review.  Whether you run a large national bank with hundreds of locations or a regional credit union serving a tight-knit community, the recent shift of branches into advisory and engagement centers means better data is essential. This article walks through five specific branch signals hiding in plain sight that impact revenue, customer financial health, and branch workforce management. If any of these resonate, consider speaking to an expert and exploring the resources on Coconut’s Insights hub. What Is ‘Branch Data and Analytics’ for Banks Today? Branch data and analytics combines various data types for a complete picture of location performance.  It covers everything from customer traffic and staff efficiency to appointment booking outcomes and channel mix across physical and digital touchpoints. Key data types assessed in branch analytics include things like customer traffic and staff efficiency, and banks often use the data to manage digital and physical service offerings at the same time. The main data sources paint this picture: Appointment scheduling tools record who booked, when, and for what product. Lobby and queue management systems track walk-in arrivals, wait times, and abandonment. CRM and core banking platforms connect those visits to outcomes like funded loans, opened accounts, or referral conversions. Video banking platforms capture virtual session frequency and results. Staff scheduling systems reveal advisor workload, idle time, and shift coverage. Despite this, many institutions still export data into Excel or run ad hoc BI reports with weekly or monthly delays. Omni-channel journeys, such as a member booking a home equity line consultation on a mobile device and then visiting a branch, are often not connected.  Branch analytics uses four data analysis disciplines: descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive, yet most banks still operate mainly in the descriptive zone. Coconut Software serves as a banking-specific platform that unifies scheduling, lobby management, and analytics into a single branch intelligence layer, connecting these data sources so a credit union can, for example, track HELOC consultation appointments against funded home equity lines and see which advisors, branches, and channels deliver the best results. Why Branch Analytics Matters More Than Ever Branch traffic for routine transactions has dropped since pre-2020, but the visits that remain tend to be more complex: wealth management, small business lending, mortgages, and home equity line consultations. Covid-19 sped up branch staff support for digital channels, and branch staff can now adapt to support digital channels post-Covid-19, which means the data picture is naturally multi-channel. Banks need precise analytics to show branch ROI in this environment. Regulators, boards, and executives at banks and credit unions are increasingly asking for clear data on branch performance, member financial health impact, and advisor productivity. Branch analytics helps with site selection by analyzing local demographics and competitor density, and data from branch analytics lets institutions spot market trends and risks early. Traditional metrics like raw foot traffic and simple account openings aren’t enough anymore. Analytics need to show conversion rates, cross-sell performance, and customer satisfaction per interaction. Better branch intelligence directly supports branch workforce management, forecasting, and location strategy, helping leaders decide whether to keep, resize, close, or convert branches. Institutions that focus on insight-forward analytics right now can capture more revenue opportunities, especially in complex products like mortgages and home equity lines, and attract members who value convenience and expert advice. Five Branch Signals Hiding in Plain Sight (and What They Mean) Most banks already collect the data behind these five signals, but few connect the dots. The signals are: peak unpredicted demand, no-show patterns, advisor underutilization, walk-in conversion gaps, and appointment-to-product ratios. Each becomes much more useful when tracked across locations, customer segments, and time periods. Coconut Software’s analytics bring these signals to light in real time, letting branch leaders make quick adjustments instead of waiting for after-the-fact reports. 1. Peak Unpredicted Demand: The Queue Spikes You’re Missing Peak unpredicted demand happens when walk-in or same-day appointment volume spikes beyond what schedules or forecasts expected. Detecting it means comparing forecasted versus actual visits and watching wait times by 15- to 30-minute intervals. Digital queues improve customer waiting experiences in

Cost-Cutting Strategies for Banks and Credit Unions: How to Reduce Spend Without Eroding CX

In a nutshell 🥥 Since 2020, banks and credit unions have watched costs rise faster than revenue, making smart, data-driven cost cutting a 2026 board priority. Below, you’ll learn about how to reduce spend without eroding customer experience by: mapping costs to key customer journeys; optimizing branch footprint, hours, and staffing; automating manual work with digital workflows; consolidating vendors without sacrificing depth; using engagement and branch analytics to continuously lower operating costs; protecting high-value advisory conversations; expanding video banking to unlock specialist capacity; and investing in change management so frontline teams adopt the tools that generate lasting savings. The Coconut Takeaways Since 2020, North American banks have seen operating expenses outpace revenue growth, pushing cost-cutting to a board-level mandate for future budgets. Banks face the challenge of adapting to increasingly complex regulatory requirements and the negative impact of low interest rates, which squeeze profit margins and make cost cutting even more critical. Consolidating point solutions into fewer platforms can deliver significant cost savings in licensing and IT effort, especially by adopting new systems to streamline operations and eliminate data silos, but generic all-in-one tools often underperform in scheduling, lobby management, and analytics. Data-driven, customer-centric cost reduction (using things like branch analytics and bank appointment data) delivers both lower operating costs and higher customer satisfaction scores. Intelligent Branch Solutions help banks and credit unions cut costs by optimizing appointments, lobby and queue operations, and video banking while feeding clean engagement data into CRM, WFM, and analytics systems. Why Banks Need Smarter Cost Cutting Right Now New regulations and the rising cost of compliance reporting have increased operational pressures, while persistently low interest rates have squeezed profit margins and made it even more challenging for banks to maintain profitability. Today, regulators and shareholders simultaneously demand stronger compliance management and better digital experiences—leaving little room for blunt budget cuts. Addressing inefficiencies and complying with evolving regulations often requires an initial investment in technology and process improvements, but this is essential for long-term cost savings and scalability. Compliance costs for financial crime alone reached $56.7 billion in North America in 2022, highlighting the significant financial burden on banks to meet regulatory requirements. Rising licensing fees, overlapping tools, and branch overhead present surgical savings opportunities for many bank executives willing to take a strategic approach. Below, we’re going to focus on concrete, operations-focused cost-cutting strategies, including tech consolidation, branch and staffing optimization, process automation, and smarter use of engagement data. The goal? To get you thinking about how to link every cost reduction to measurable outcomes: lower cost per account, better CSAT/NPS, reduced wait times, and higher conversion on lending and wealth conversations. Targeted Cost Reduction vs. Indiscriminate Cuts The 2020-2022 responses revealed a stark contrast: Banks that froze hiring and shuttered branches indiscriminately suffered 5-10% customer churn and market share erosion. Frontline capacity strained, waits lengthened, and high-intent opportunities vanished. Meanwhile, streamlined operators reinvested savings into digital advice and branch transformations, preserving revenue while improving operational efficiency. The challenge lies in managing operational costs and risk management while *also* addressing inefficiencies in workflows and compliance processes. Good cost cutting eliminates waste—duplicate tools, manual rekeying, underused branch hours—while protecting high-value human interactions around mortgages, HELOCs, small business lending, and wealth advisory. High employee turnover in compliance departments can lead to substantial costs in recruitment, training, and onboarding, making it essential for banks to improve job satisfaction to reduce these expenses. Here are 3 risk areas of indiscriminate cuts: Degraded customer experience from longer wait times and fewer advisors, increasing potential abandonment by 15-25% Impaired data quality that starves CRM and AI of structured insights Lower frontline adoption turning tools into expensive shelfware Whatever the scenario, though, just know that leading banks establish the guardrails that really matter: Never cut tools that materially improve loan pull-through and deposit growth, or free up advisor capacity. Tip #1. Map bank costs to customer journeys and revenue drivers. Journey-based cost mapping connects spend to specific steps: Discovery, appointment booking, in-branch wait, consultation, onboarding, and follow-up. Making use of branch data and analytics dashboards can enhance customer journey analytics, allowing banks to better understand customer behavior and preferences across both digital and physical channels. Consider a home-equity customer journey: online research → self-booked appointment → branch or video meeting → underwriting → funding. Friction points like manual scheduling or lobby congestion add $50-100 per interaction through no-shows and overtime. Quantifying cost to serve: Tag appointments and lobby visits by interaction type (mortgage, wealth, small business, service) Analyze 6-12 months of operational data to compare cost per funded mortgage via branch vs. video Identify conversion rates by conversation type (mortgage ~25%, wealth ~40%, service ~80% digital-shift potential) This mapping enables informed decisions: protect journeys that drive high lifetime value while streamlining processes and service-only traffic through self service channels to reduce operating costs. Tip #2. Optimize branch footprint, hours, and staffing models. Many banks are right-sizing their physical presence to match changing consumer behaviors, making branch optimization a critical lever for annual budgets. Research is showing us that banks must strategically analyze their branch network to optimize locations, as the cost of branch transactions is increasing while the number of transactions is decreasing. Banks can use 12-24 months of branch traffic data—footfall, check-ins, dwell times—combined with appointment data to identify underutilized locations and peak versus off-peak hours. Three optimization levers: Shorten low-traffic hours (saving 10-15% on utilities and staffing) Rebalance staff roles toward more advisors and fewer tellers as 70% of transactions move digital Implement a branch consolidation plan alongside a strong e-banking strategy to reduce operational costs while maintaining necessary in-person services Convert low-performing branches into advice-only or cashless hubs Automated lighting and smart HVAC systems can significantly lower utility expenses in banking branches. Since 2022, many banks have shifted to appointment-first models on Saturdays for complex products, reducing idle time by 25%. Coconut Software’s branch intelligence and lobby management data provide precise visibility into arrival patterns, wait times, and advisor utilization to support these rationalization decisions. Tip #3.

Mastering Social Customer Acquisition For Banks and Credit Unions

Optimize your social content to attract new customers and engage existing ones by integrating online appointment scheduling with your social media strategy.

How to Increase Wealth Appointments with Calls-to-Action

In a nutshell 🥥 Appointment-based calls-to-action (CTAs) are one of the fastest ways for financial institutions to turn digital interest into booked, revenue-generating meetings across both lending and wealth. By implementing always-on self-serve appointment scheduling, tracking CTA conversion performance, and continuously optimizing messaging and design through A/B testing, banks and credit unions can reduce funnel friction, boost click-through and conversion rates, and capture more high-value lending and wealth appointments around the clock. As a marketer at a financial institution, creating revenue generating appointments to fill your pipeline is a key part of the job. More and more, you’ve observed that your customers are looking to connect with your organization online, through a number of channels (mobile app, website) and scheduling appointments is no exception. Customer behavior has evolved, and it’s time to digitally transform the appointment scheduling process and optimizing your calls-to-action is a great place to start. The Definition of a Call-To-Action In short, a call-to-action is a “next step” that you would like your customer or prospect to take that leads them closer to the final destination: making a purchase. Often paired with a link, it includes a short, powerful message to incite a reader, prospect or website visitor to complete an action. How Calls-to-Action Impact the Sales Funnel For financial services organizations, new business is typically generated through an in-person interaction between an advisor and the customer, therefore appointment CTAs are an obvious entry point to your sales funnel. It’s important to optimize your CTAs with persuasive messaging and intuitive, actionable prompts that are available wherever your customers are contemplating taking that next step: on your website, landing pages and in your email marketing, for example.   And it’s crucial that you make this step, and the steps following it as effortless as possible. Increasing Click-Through-Rate Hubspot found that conversion rates increased by almost half when they streamlined the number of steps it took to complete the action. Here are some common CTAs with lengthy completion steps that could cause your prospects to lose patience, abandon the action and drop out of the sales funnel: CTAs that read “Call XXX-XXX-XXXX to schedule an appointment,” that direct customers to a contact center to complete the action. Providing generic ‘Contact Us’ form to request an appointment without a rigorous follow-up process, or timely response. Service or need specific actions either don’t exist or require your prospect to search branch websites in order to identify locations that meet their needs. Removing friction in the appointment scheduling journey will help reduce leaks in your funnel AND improve customer experience. Below are the 3 steps to implementing calls-to-actions that drive revenue instantly. Step 1: Implement an “Always-on”, self-serve, bank appointment scheduling tool. If you’re looking to optimize appointment generation through your website and other digital channels, implementing a self-serve solution is one of the best shortcuts to capturing more appointments. Time and convenience are highly valued by customers, a study by Forrester found that 72% of customers prefer to use self-service rather than phone or email support. Implementing a self-serve appointment scheduling channel is a great way to simplify the customer appointment scheduling experience while enabling you to gather valuable marketing data to help better plan future campaigns. Self-serve appointment scheduling provides customers with the ability to independently schedule an appointment online, allowing them to choose the time and location they desire and informing them immediately that their appointment has been scheduled.  With 64% of consumers saying that they expect companies to respond to them in real-time, this helps eliminate the tumultuous task of manually scheduling appointments and saves both employee and customer time. We’ve also observed that our clients’ customers are reaching out to connect 24/7 through online channels, expecting responses in real-time and often, after-business hours. And in fact, we found that after implementing an always-on self-serve channel for our customers, an average of 41% appointments were scheduled between 5pm and 9am. That’s almost half of an organization’s overall number of scheduled appointments that never would have been captured, had it not been for this channel! Not only will implementing a self-serve channel help drive leads, but new customers will start their journey with a better perception of your brand. This provides a better foundation to build a relationship and can help with customer retention further down the line. Step 2: Track & Measure Call-to-Action Conversion Rate. Once you’ve implemented a self-serve appointment scheduling channel and are driving prospects to schedule an appointments online, the next step is to begin tracking the performance of your CTAs and landing pages so that you can further optimize. A conversion rate is commonly referred to as “the percentage of users who complete a desired action.” In order to get a full picture of your website CTA conversion rate though, here are a few key metrics to be tracking to identify low hanging fruit and areas of optimization: Landing page traffic: How many visitors are coming to the landing page? Landing page bounce rate:  How many visitors aren’t finding what they need on the landing page? CTA actions completed: How many customers completed an appointment scheduling from that particular landing page? This can be tracked by landing page, service, the specific text that instructs what action to be taken, to name a few. What’s a good conversion rate? Across industries, the average landing page conversion rate was 2.35%, yet the top 25% are converting at 5.31% or higher. The better the conversion rate, the better the results. Step 3: Optimize CTA Performance with A/B Testing. To further optimize CTA conversion rate, there are a number of variables you can experiment with, from landing page layout, headline, CTA language, text or button color and other design elements. Making ongoing improvements to your landing pages and calls-to-action, optimizing performance, can make a difference to your bottom line. Whatever your CTA performance today, though, there’s always room for improvement. Tracking, testing, tweaking these variables is how you can optimize CTAs. Ask yourself these questions: Could the wording