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First United Bank & Trust is a full-service financial institution with almost two billion in assets, over 20 full-service or drive-up offices, and a customer service center.
When First United Bank & Trust wanted to modernize its legacy network infrastructure and improve its call center capabilities while reducing costs, it faced challenges with outdated technology, limited control, and rising costs. To address these challenges, the bank turned to a team of Bridgepointe strategists for guidance on upgrading to SD-WAN technology.
At the time, the bank relied on an outdated MPLS network fully managed by an external provider.
As AJ Tasker, Vice President & Managing Director of Operations at First United Bank & Trust, explains, “We had a legacy MPLS network, fully managed by our core provider. We were operating on an old MPLS network — the same network everyone had 10 or 15 years ago. It had a traditional layout, which provided zero access to the routers, causing delays in troubleshooting and visibility. We had to go through the provider for everything.”
Additionally, the high cost of the network and lack of redundancy posed operational risks.
Driving Network Efficiency with SD-WAN
The bank engaged with the Bridgepointe team, leveraging their expertise to explore how they could modernize their network with SD-WAN technology.
AJ said, “We knew going into this project that reducing costs would factor into our decision-making and thought we could find a company to help us manage that, but once we started understanding SD-WAN technology, we realized the cost savings were coming in over the original projections.”
The Bridgepointe team spearheaded the SD-WAN upgrade process, coordinating a thorough vendor evaluation and bringing in specialists to ensure the bank could effectively manage its new network.
“As part of the project, we looked at several vendors. When we went through the demo with our selected provider, we liked how they approached everything from a co-management perspective. There was also the fact that the entire way they operated at that time was more of that small business feel, which is how we like to operate. All these things drew us to them. With SD-WAN, everything is so visible and having that accessibility has taken some of the resource load off the internal network team. It’s improved connectivity, reduced latency, and we’ve had very few outages.”
AJ appreciated the Bridgepointe team’s diverse skills and expertise throughout the process.” Working with the Bridgepointe team has been outstanding. Working with people who can play to each other’s strengths is great. Every step of the way they heard our needs and concerns and handled them.”
Greater Efficiency with Nearly a Million Dollars Saved
The transition to SD-WAN resulted in a dramatic 50% reduction in network costs, with savings reaching hundreds of thousands of dollars over a three-year contract. The bank also experienced a 400% increase in bandwidth and achieved full circuit redundancy at every location, significantly enhancing network reliability.
AJ explains, “The technology we’re now using, thanks to Bridgepointe, is ten times better than the old network, and we have much more visibility. Co-management of the network provides us with the ability to troubleshoot when needed versus always relying on a vendor.”
This comprehensive solution will save First United Bank & Trust nearly a million dollars over its three-year contract and has improved its operational efficiency, customer experience, and overall network performance.
Unified Communication Platforms Modernize the Call Center
The bank also implemented a new unified communication platform for the call center, enabling chat and text capabilities that integrated seamlessly.
The new platform introduced omnichannel support on the call center side, allowing the bank to better serve customers through a single, streamlined interface.
“With our previous call center solution, the call center agents couldn’t chat or text. Making the switch allowed us to open new paths of communication with our customers instead of just calling.
As a small community bank, we love to foster face-to-face interactions. We like to have phone conversations. We want to hear and feel our customers. This new solution allows us to continue having that while supplementing with chat and text. It’s a huge benefit that provides a preferred channel to all customers, and even better, it all comes from the same console, making things much more efficient for our call center associates.”
Says AJ, “Having that neutral third party like Bridgepointe that deals with finding solutions all the time has been so valuable. With projects like these, so much investigation and vetting must be done before you even get to the potential solutions, but this time, I had the Bridgepointe team. They do this daily, taking all that work off your plate right from the start. Usually, these types of projects involve a trade-off — you might get a win on cost but lose on functionality, or vice versa. However, thanks to working with Bridgepointe, both projects were a win-win!”
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