Southern Cross Credit Union is a customer-owned credit union serving the Northern Rivers region of NSW and South East Queensland. It isn't a big bank, but it had a big-bank problem: as it grew, routine calls pushed average wait times from under two minutes to nearly eight.
So it started with one job. Many customers called just to check their account balance, some several times a week. The credit union built an AI phone assistant called Nova, with Salesforce, to handle those balance calls. It took six weeks to build and launch.
What happened
- Nova checks who is calling, then reads out their real-time balance.
- It now handles 7% of all calls to the credit union.
- The credit union says customers have received it well, including some regular callers it expected to be hesitant.
- If a caller sounds frustrated or distressed, Nova passes them to a team member along with the conversation so far, so they don't have to repeat themselves.
That frees the team for the calls that really need a person, like lost cards or scam reports. Next, the credit union plans a website chat assistant for simple questions such as branch hours.
The lesson for your business
Don't try to automate your whole phone line. Find the one question you answer over and over, like "Where's my order?", "What are your hours?" or "Do you have this in stock?", and start there. Make sure there's always an easy way to reach a real person.
Why implementation is the key
The AI wasn't the hard part. Southern Cross picked the right job, connected the assistant to real account information, and set up a clean handover to a person. That's what made it work.
When a business tries this alone, the usual problems are trying to automate everything at once, an assistant that doesn't know the real answers, or callers who can't get through to a person.
How Ven can help
We're AI implementers. Whether you've already tried an AI tool or you're starting fresh, we can help you pick your most common enquiry, set up an AI phone or chat assistant trained on your real answers, and build a clear handover to your team. If you'd like to talk it through, get in touch.
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