Case Studies > Community Choice banks on Pyramid for advanced analytics

Community Choice banks on Pyramid for advanced analytics

Customer Company Size

Large Corporate

Region

America

Country

United States

Product

Pyramid Decision Intelligence Platform
Microsoft Power BI
Tableau
Salesforce

Tech Stack

SQL Warehouse
ETL
Dashboard and Reporting Services

Implementation Scale

Enterprise-wide Deployment

Impact Metrics

Cost Savings
Productivity Improvements
Customer Satisfaction
Digital Expertise

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Predictive Analytics
Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Visualization

Applicable Industries

Finance & Insurance

Applicable Functions

Business Operation
Sales & Marketing

Services

System Integration
Software Design & Engineering Services

About The Customer

Community Choice Credit Union is a Michigan-based financial institution that has been serving its members since 1935. With 22 branches across the state, it caters to over 115,000 members, offering a wide range of financial services including eCommerce and mobile banking, as well as traditional investment and insurance products. Known for its progressive approach, the credit union aims to be at the forefront of its sector by leveraging advanced analytics to better understand its customers and foster a data-driven culture. The organization is committed to operational efficiency and continuous improvement, making it a trusted and respected entity in Michigan's financial landscape.

The Challenge

Since it opened for business in 1935, Community Choice Credit Union has grown to become one of the most trusted and respected financial institutions in Michigan, with 22 branches across the state serving the needs of more than 115,000 members. A progressive organization offering a wide range of financial services, it has embraced eCommerce and mobile banking alongside more traditional investment and insurance products. A legacy reporting system that was slowing down plans to develop advanced analytics undermined a mission to be at the leading edge of its sector. Reports came out as Excel and CSV files, an arduous manual process that was often inaccurate and limited by the siloed systems that produced them. Several alternatives were explored, including going the CRM route with Salesforce and BI tools like Microsoft Power BI and Tableau. In the end, Pyramid Analytics won out for several reasons, as Pedro Tan, Assistant Vice President of Data Analytics, explained. “It’s a robust and flexible product in terms of data integration, and the predictive analytics toolsets are very capable,” he said. “And because we don’t have a big team, Pyramid’s support from a technical standpoint was always going to be useful, particularly in how we developed data models.”

The Solution

Licensed for 100 users and installed on-premises, Pyramid has been widely adopted by multiple business units, including retail, lending, eCommerce, marketing, risk management, and inside its contact center. Insights are also used strategically by C-suite management and project teams for identifying merger opportunities and new retail locations. The analytics process starts when data from multiple third-party sources is pulled into an SQL warehouse. The Pyramid platform sits on top of it, applying built-in ETL and a range of dashboard and reporting services tailored to the different stakeholders. “We are able to create dashboards quickly and easily, giving users access not only to the data but to the information within the dashboard data models that they can ‘slice and dice,’” explained Tan. For example, in the retail division, branch managers, member center managers, assistant managers, and personal advisors have access to valuable insights that drive customer engagement. As well as tracking new memberships, they can monitor product performance and cross-sells, how many people upgrade from a standard to a more feature-rich account, for example. They analyze the most used products and services and target members most likely to take out another service, such as a car loan or an investment portfolio. “Based on a member’s behavior, which we’ve measured through Pyramid, we can see who might be a good candidate for a particular type of product or service,” explained Eric Righetti, Assistant Vice President of Retail Delivery.

Operational Impact

The most significant benefit for Community Choice is how Pyramid has advanced a strategy to become more data-driven, enabling a progressive credit union to differentiate itself from competitors further. Seeing benefits in operational efficiency has helped embed analytics in the company’s culture.
Even better, having the Pyramid Decision Intelligence Platform supports a journey of continual improvement, taking advantage of increasingly sophisticated analytics. Work is now underway to build on predictive with prescriptive analytics, using optimization modeling to determine the best way forward instead of interpreting past trends to make future decisions.
Eric Righetti described it as putting the credit union “ahead of the game” as a one-stop provider. “With key metrics available on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis, it helps us focus on the things we want to target as an organization, to really understand the behaviors of our members and be proactive in reaching out to them,” he said.
Faster time to insights, cost savings, and providing the organization with a repository of deeper knowledge are among the tangible business benefits. “It’s definitely saved hundreds of hours of manual reporting each month, and the automation in the platform has helped with accuracy as well as saving time by removing manual error,” said Pedro Tan.
The self-service aspect of Pyramid’s platform has also been important, enabling senior management to pull up insights to share at meetings. Dynamic filtering and drill-down capabilities make light work of putting data into the hands of the people who need it. “Pyramid just gives us more,” said Eric Righetti. “It allows us to work smarter rather than harder; it allows our teams to dive in deeper and get a better understanding of members and their behaviors.’’

Quantitative Benefit