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The Q2 Fintech Partner Ecosystem Offers C&N a Competitive Edge

Written by Q2 | 7 Jul, 2023

Small but mighty. That’s how Brandy Allen, Senior Vice President and Director of Digital Channels for Citizens & Northern Bank (C&N) describes the Pennsylvania-based, $2.5 billion financial organization. “We're small but mighty. We want to compete with the big banks,” she says. To C&N’s delight, Q2 has equipped them with a set of robust, pre-integrated digital tools at their fingertips, enabling C&N to meet and exceed customer expectations. Best of all, new digital tools can be deployed quickly, without the need for C&N to carry the burden of implementing new digital features, such as due diligence, compliance and integration.

One of the things I love about Q2 is its ability to plug and play these systems into our digital banking experience. What’s unique is its vast variety of services and products that are already fully vetted into the banking experience. Q2 already conducted due diligence on these products. They've integrated them into the system.”

C&N is an early adopter of new digital solutions and sustainable platforms, which has allowed it to provide high-quality service for its customers. As customer needs evolve and expand, C&N meets those needs through its robust digital capabilities and offerings. C&N began its partnership with Q2 in 2007 and believes innovation is key to keeping pace with customer expectations. Its approach to digital has continued to grow and iterate alongside Q2’s evolution of digital offerings.

Q2’s best-in-class digital banking platform powers C&N’s online and mobile banking experience. In addition, C&N leverages the Q2 fintech partner ecosystem, which allows financial institutions to easily and seamlessly add new features, functions, and capabilities to their digital banking platform to accelerate the delivery of new innovative solutions to their account holders through fintech partnerships. Q2’s open solution set uses Q2 Innovation Studio, allowing fintech partners to integrate into its ecosystem under different programs.

The features are ready to be quickly deployed on C&N’s timeline with the confidence that the feature will fit seamlessly into the dashboard. Below are some of the solutions that C&N’s customers love.

Glia provides a 59 percent increase in digital chats

In today’s world, many consumers complain about the inefficiencies of the customer service process. Long queues for assistance, describing the issue to multiple service agents, being re-routed without resolution, and other inconveniences. Recognizing that many of these issues are embedded into the technical structure of the organization, C&N looked closely at Glia, the modern, intuitive customer service tool available through the Q2 fintech partner ecosystem.

The human-assisted chatbox feature and phone-in options enable C&N to provide relevant, in-the-moment assistance. Within the first year, C&N saw a 59 percent increase in digital chat sessions and 1,000 additional engagements using Glia’s call center and co-browsing feature. The solution enables C&N representatives to join the customer’s live digital session to immediately understand what the customer is experiencing and resolve issues.C&N’s customers and internal employees rave about the simple, effective approach to managing inquiries.

Q2 Discover results in a 400 percent increase in responses for C&N’s Net Promoter Score® 

In another successful launch, C&N saw the power of Q2 Discover, which allows C&N to instantly deploy in-app messages, called “guides” which can be strategically placed next to specific digital banking options for customers to view while they’re transacting. These relevant messages can include answers to frequently asked questions, such as placing a guide on the accounts page with a message such as, “Tell me the difference between my available balance and current balance”. The guides can also request information, such as updated addresses or income levels, should account holders wish to apply for a credit increase.

Rather than bombarding customers with direct messages, the non-invasive approach gives customers the option to interact with the message or simply ignore it. C&N deployed a guide to gather feedback for its Net Promoter Score and experienced a significant increase in responses. “We launched our Net Promoter Score® through Q2 Discover instead of emailing the survey as we had in the past. We actually saw a 400 percent increase in responses from our customers, and I think that really demonstrates that we're meeting customers where they want to be met – right in their digital banking versus asking them to respond to an email,” Allen says.

SavvyMoney fully launched and generating enrollees within 60 days

C&N knew from a recent survey of its accountholders that they wanted a credit score monitoring tool embedded into their digital banking dashboard. Once again, Q2 had the ideal solution. Once customers enroll, SavvyMoney automatically runs in the background to monitor credit and provide in-the-moment feedback on how various financial actions have impacted credit scores. It’s not only an excellent credit monitoring tool, it’s an educational solution in financial literacy.

“We were able to easily integrate it within 60 days, and we really had a new product that was up and running,” Allen said. In the first month, 1,345 customers had already enrolled, and adoption continues to grow, month after month.

Q2 – a true partner

Allen sums it up like this: “We think of Q2 as an extension of our team, our business, and even our family. We've built these relationships with Q2 where we can collaborate, we can give feedback, and they can challenge us, and we can challenge them. When I think about Q2 as a strategic partner, I really think of them as being innovators. They're looking for the best of the best, but they're also thinking about the customer experience, which is really important to us.”

To learn more about the Q2 and C&N partnership, read the case study.