By John San Filippo
Ray K. Ragan, co-founder of VeroTerra, interim CEO and full-time CIO of Security Plus Federal Credit Union, and Lieutenant Colonel in the Army Reserve, wears many hats. He's also the inventor of an innovative artificial intelligence (AI)-powered system designed to revolutionize member experience in credit union branches.
From Military Threat Detection to Member Satisfaction Detection
Ragan's journey began with a familiar frustration for marketers: low response rates to traditional Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys. As he explained to Finopotamus, "We would send out several hundred of these surveys, but we'd only get a couple back. It was awful." This frustration, coupled with his experience working with AI vision technology in the Army, sparked an idea.
As Ragan explained it, AI vision is a field that uses machine learning and neural networks to teach computers to derive meaningful information from digital images, videos and other visual inputs.
"I was working in the Army on a program for AI vision, where I was doing threat detection," Ragan said. This led him to wonder whether he could use the same technology to collect real-time NPS data in the branch. A weekend of coding later, VeroTerra's core technology was built.
The system, currently deployed in five Maryland/Washington DC area credit unions, utilizes AI vision to gather real-time member feedback. As members exit the branch, they encounter a screen. "They see themselves on the screen," Ragan noted. "At that point, the AI detects the person and says, 'Hey, how was your visit? Is this something worth referring?'" Members can respond with a thumbs up, thumbs down, or no response, providing immediate feedback.
Consensual AI
Ragan emphasized the ethical considerations at the heart of his design. Unlike some AI sentiment analysis tools, VeroTerra’s system is consensual. "A person doesn't have to participate in the actual survey," he pointed out. He contrasted this with systems that "pull the emotion off your face whether you want to or not." Initially, the system doesn't identify individuals. Future roadmap features, however, would allow for member authentication with consent, opening the door to personalized lobby management, he added.
Ragan's vision extends beyond real-time NPS. He sees significant potential in fraud prevention, noting a troubling incident where a member was defrauded through shared branching despite presenting a legitimate ID. VeroTerra’s technology could add an extra layer of security by verifying member identity against core system data. "We could ensure that the person presenting is the same one that we know in our core," he explained. This would require participating credit unions to integrate with the VeroTerra system, something Ragan acknowledges is on the horizon. "At some point," he admitted, "we're going to have to cross that bridge."
The roadmap also includes touchless lobby management. This feature, inspired by pandemic-era hygiene concerns, would allow members to check in and indicate their needs simply by gesturing at a screen. "People now can come in and check in in a very easy and frictionless way that requires no touching of any screen or anything like that," Ragan said.
Small But Growing
Currently, VeroTerra is a lean operation. "It's just the three of us right now," Ragan said, referring to himself, his co-founder, and his senior developer. They are actively seeking seed capital, with interest from both venture capital firms and a potential credit union investor. Ragan expects a term sheet in the first quarter of 2025, anticipating the need to scale operations, especially with a new reseller agreement with a design-build firm. "I'm coming into the reality that it's no longer feasible to have ‘Ray Ragan’ show up at your branch and set this all up," he said.
Ragan firmly believes this technology is essential for credit unions to remain competitive. "I see what's happening in our industry, and I'm very concerned," he stated. He worries that credit unions are falling behind banks in accountholder experience and sees his technology as a crucial tool for gathering member feedback and adapting to evolving needs. "We need to ensure that our members are happy enough with the experiences that they're getting, that they're willing to actually refer us," he emphasized. This, he believes, makes the data generated by his system vital not just for marketing departments, but for CEOs and CFOs concerned with the long-term health of their institutions.
留言