The Total Economic Impact™ Of Coconut Software

Incremental Growth In Mortgages

Evidence and data. According to interviewees, moving to Coconut correlated with an increase in both appointment volume and closing rate when it came to new home mortgage applications.

• The two years leading up to customer interviews for this study were a time of strong real estate activity, which all interviewees said had contributed to their growth. They also said that the ability to easily integrate a direct appointment-booking link from Coconut into their digital and email marketing campaigns — something most of them couldn’t do in their prior environment — drove increased market share in a competitive market. The product owner at the bank recalled: “When we started offering appointments with our mortgage-servicing team to be booked on our website, we saw a really good uptick in appointment volume. We also do a lot of email campaigns, and now that we have appointment scheduling, most of our calls to action are ‘Click this link to schedule an appointment.’ We’ve seen a more successful pull-through rate with the link right in the email versus ‘Click here to fill out a form.’”

• Interviewees also noted that the investment of time and money involved in a mortgage application aligns much more naturally with an appointment as opposed to a walk-in. By gathering important customer details for the advisor, preparing the customer to bring required documentation, and providing a secure link to continue an in-progress application, Coconut’s appointment-setting process made the process more efficient. The branch operations manager for the smaller California credit union said: “We’ve tailored the communications around what’s expected, and we can send customers the link to go back to their application at home. We leverage Coconut’s technology to make things easier.” In this way, the Coconut experience enabled efficiency and application completion, which translated to a higher closing rate.

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• Before moving to Coconut, the composite reports 187,500 total appointments per year across all branches, and 10% of these appointments are related to new mortgage applications.

• After moving to Coconut, the composite experiences a 20% increase in the number of appointments related to new mortgages.

• The closing rate on these additional new-loan appointments is 5%.

• Using the median value of all new home mortgages originated across the US and Canada in the third quarter of 2025,⁸ the net interest margin on a mortgage, and a risk adjustment to account for variability, the present value of the total cumulative profit earned on those new mortgages over three years is approximately $6.5 million.

• The net interest on a mortgage is estimated at 2.5%.⁹

Risks. The extent of this benefit will vary based on:

• The number of branches and appointment volume for the organization.

• Current economic factors (such as interest rates and the strength of the real estate market), which could drive demand for home mortgages up or down.

• The closing rate on home mortgage appointments.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 20%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $6.5 million.

Incremental Growth In Deposit Accounts

Evidence and data. Interviewees said that appointments also supported growth in new deposit accounts, which provide financial benefits both in the short and long term through relationship-building and cross-sell opportunities.

The larger California credit union acts as the third-party retirement plan administrator for several large regional employers. As its manager of wealth operations and analytics explained, Coconut’s appointment-setting and video-banking capabilities supported its expansion of this service, which plays a similar product strategy role as the establishment of new checking and savings accounts for laying a foundation for future growth. The manager said: “[Our service as a retirement plan administrator] is often the lead to get us into areas of the state where we don’t have enough members to support a branch, but it starts brand recognition and trust building. It is very much about that first step.”

They continued: “We added 23 employers last year, and we’ve taken on 65 this year, so we’re now serving just under 450 employers throughout the state. That’s a 30% increase this year. And we wouldn’t have been able to do that without a system that could give us the ability to take those appointments.”

The interviewee also specifically mentioned Coconut’s video banking as a critical enabler of this service expansion because it made their credit union a viable option even in remote areas that weren’t close to a physical branch. In this respect, the video banking service helped to seed future customer growth that could one day support establishment of a new branch.

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• Before moving to Coconut, the composite reports 187,500 total appointments per year across all branches, and 15% of these appointments are related to new deposit accounts.

• After moving to Coconut, the composite experiences a 20% increase from the baseline number of appointments related to new deposit accounts.

• The closing rate for these additional appointments is 8.5%.

• Using the median balance of all household deposit accounts across the US and Canada, the average return on assets, and a risk adjustment to account for variability, the present value of the total cumulative profit earned on those new deposits over three years is approximately $183,000.¹⁰

• According to the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), the average return on assets is 1.2%.¹¹

Risks. The extent of this benefit will vary based on:

• The number of branches and appointment volume for the organization.

• Current economic factors, such as interest rates and inflation, which could drive consumer saving rates up or down.

• Personal mobility and the number of new residents and families moving into a local area.

• The closing rate on deposit account appointments.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 20%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $183,000.

Incremental Growth In Consumer Personal Loans

Evidence and data. Just as moving to Coconut coincided with consumer growth in home mortgages, the ease of appointment scheduling also drove growth for consumer personal lending.

• One of the interviewees’ organizations, the western-US-based credit union, came to Coconut from a prior environment in which it did not offer appointments at all. The credit union saw significant reductions in customer wait time and processing time, which translated into vastly improved loan sales metrics. The VP of member service for the western-US credit union said: “We’ve seen improvement in our loan closing rates. Before, a member would come in, start an application, and then leave, and there was a lot of back and forth. The appointment scheduling has made a big difference for us. Not only is the time scheduled and allotted for what we need to do but we’ve created better expectations in advance. If a customer comes in at 4:00 for a loan and they have all their information, they can leave with a check at 5:00,” said. This interviewee explained that, prior to Coconut, a customer would often have to wait an hour or two in the lobby to simply hand paperwork to a loan officer.

• The smaller California credit union, which did have the ability to take appointments under its prior solution, saw appointment volume growth of 14% with Coconut. This same interviewee said that they had also seen an improvement in the closing rate, as well as initial volume, from Coconut-driven appointments. The branch operations manager said: “For the 80% of loan accounts coming out of branch interactions (as opposed to digital self-service), I would say our closing rate has probably improved from 5% to 10%. And these would be coming directly from an appointment, not from other channels.”

• Finally, all interviewees talked about market-driven demand swings. For loans and mortgages, lower interest rates and/or a more active housing market drives increased interest. For wealth management, stock market swings can create notable short-term volume growth in appointment requests. In all cases, Coconut was able to handle the ebbs and flows. As the SVP and head of data at the investment firm explained: “When there are big stock market swings and clients react, there is a surge in demand for appointments. It evens out eventually because the customer who requests an ad hoc meeting won’t have their quarterly check-in three weeks later, but it does require a system that can support surges in demand. Coconut can handle big swings that can run 200% of normal volume.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• Before moving to Coconut, the composite reports 187,500 total appointments per year across all branches, and 15% of these appointments are related to new loan applications.

• The model factors in a 5% year-over-year growth in baseline appointment volume.

• After moving to Coconut, the composite experiences a 20% increase over this baseline in the number of appointments related to new loans.

• The closing rate on these additional new-loan appointments is 8.5%.

• Using the median value of all new consumer personal loans originated across the US and Canada in recent periods (2023 to 2025), the net interest margin on a loan, and a risk adjustment to account for variability, the present value of the total cumulative profit earned on those new loans over three years is approximately $684,000.¹²

Risks. The extent of this benefit will vary based on:

• The number of branches and appointment volume for the organization.

• Current economic factors, such as interest rates and inflation, which could drive demand for consumer loans — and year-over-year change in appointment volume — up or down.

• The closing rate on consumer lending appointments.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 20%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $684,000.

Increased Staff Productivity

Evidence and data. By supporting customer-self-service scheduling and rescheduling, automatic reminders, and the sharing of key information in advance of the first meeting, Coconut improved efficiency and productivity.

• Coconut’s appointment scheduling model — which automatically pulls available times from advisors’ personal calendars and allows customers to self-serve at their convenience — was a dramatic improvement over manual processes, which usually meant multiple rounds of emails. The product owner for the bank shared: “Before, if someone wanted to schedule an appointment, we’d offer them three different times, and if those didn’t work, then we’d go back and forth over email. With Coconut, the process has definitely gotten more efficient. Now, it’s just ‘Use this link to book an appointment,’ and that takes seconds, versus going back and forth for days.”

• In terms of meeting preparedness, Coconut’s scheduling flow, which captured key information from the customer and shared key information on required documentation, helped everyone arrive better prepared for their first appointment. The manager of wealth operations and analytics for the larger California credit union said: “The advisor can see the notes from the screening questions that are automatically asked when a customer makes an appointment. So instead of putting the onus on a teller or a call center employee to ask those fact-finding questions, they get that information right off the questionnaire. That’s been an improvement and helped with consistency.” All interviewees agreed that better preparation saved significant meeting time, probably eliminating the need for a fact-finding first meeting in the loan initiation process, which typically takes two to three meetings to complete an application.

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• Compared with their baseline number of appointments per year before moving to Coconut, the composite organization takes 90,000 more appointments related to new mortgages, new deposit accounts, and new consumer personal loans in Year 1 after moving to Coconut.

• For each of these new-product sales efforts — which may take several appointments to move from initial conversation to application approval or account funding — the advisor and customer save 30 minutes by skipping the introductory fact-finding meeting. Because Coconut’s meeting-scheduling process gathers information from the customer (such as desired loan size, annual income, etc.) and prepares the customer with a list of documentation required for their application, both parties save significant time upfront.

• The advisor also saves an average of 5 minutes per appointment because Coconut’s scheduling UX makes it easier to use than the prior solution. This time savings applies to all appointments over the course of the year, not just those resulting from incremental volume growth attributable to Coconut. (The 5-minute scheduling time savings applies equally to meetings related to new product applications as it does to meetings related to existing account servicing.)

• Assuming that advisors will recapture 50% of that time savings and apply it to other productive work and applying a risk adjustment to account for variability, the present value of the total cumulative value of the time saved over three years is approximately $3.2 million.

• A 50% productivity recapture rate is applied to the time savings since not all saved time is used for value-adding tasks.

Risks. The extent of this benefit will vary based on:

• The number of branches and appointment volume for the organization.

• The sophistication of the appointment-scheduling tool being replaced. Moving to Coconut from a simpler tool that does not capture as much customer information during intake and meeting scheduling may generate even more time savings per new product sale (more than 30 minutes); in contrast, moving to Coconut from a solution that captures a similar amount of demographic and product-interest data upfront may result in slightly less time savings (less than 30 minutes). 

• The UX of the appointment-scheduling tool being replaced. Similarly, tools with easy-to-use interfaces, similar to Coconut, may not produce as much meeting-scheduling time savings per appointment (less than 5 minutes).

• The distribution of total appointments among initial meetings for new product sales, follow-up meetings for new product sales, and existing-product servicing appointments. The fewer meetings an organization needs to close a sale or maintain customer satisfaction, the more efficient its processes are to begin with and the lower the time savings it may realize by moving to Coconut.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 20%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $3.2 million.

Technology Savings

Evidence and data. Prior to moving to Coconut, interviewees had a variety of technology solutions in place for appointment scheduling, lobby management, and video meetings.

• Two of the credit unions and the bank used a cloud-based appointment scheduling and customer engagement platform for online appointment booking, calendar management, and automated reminders.

• The larger California credit union handled appointment scheduling on an ad hoc basis through individual advisors’ personal calendars. This organization also used two separate, standalone solutions for lobby management and text-message appointment reminders.

• The investment firm had a custom API integrated with individual advisors’ personal calendars for appointment availability and scheduling, and they used an enterprise virtual-meeting and web-conferencing solution to host video meetings.

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• Prior to Coconut, the composite organization uses a cloud-based appointment scheduling and customer engagement platform for meeting scheduling, as well as an enterprise virtual-meeting solution. Both of these tools are discontinued after the move to Coconut.

• The appointment-scheduling solution requires 0.5 FTE of internal management, while the virtual-meeting solution does not require significant labor support.

Risks. The extent of this benefit will vary based on:

• The solution(s) an organization uses prior to Coconut.

• The applicable pricing and bundling.

• The complexity of an organization’s tech stack.

• The degree of internal labor or external professional services required to maintain these solutions.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 20%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $452,000.

Unquantified Benefits

Interviewees mentioned the following additional benefits that their organizations experienced but could not quantify:

• Improved CX. Better lobby management, the ability to schedule appointments, and the ability to choose an in-person or video meeting provided customers with more agency and control over their experiences with their financial institution, which translated into a better overall experience. After moving to Coconut, interviewees said they offered customer improvements such as:

  • Reduced wait times. The VP of member service for the western-US credit union said: “In our busier branches, members could wait 30 to 40 minutes for a teller. The loan side could be even longer. There were times when members were waiting for hours in the lobby to be helped. With Coconut, we’ve reduced the wait times a ton. The appointments have been a game-changer.”
  • More transparency. The product owner for the bank said, “I think it’s a great customer service feature when you can say, ‘No one’s available right now, but I can put you in the queue,’ and your wait time’s going to be 5 minutes.”
  • More productive meetings. The ability to collect demographic and product-interest information in advance also helped companies match customers with the most knowledgeable and most appropriate advisor, which made meetings more efficient and enhanced the overall experience. For wealth management especially, it can be helpful to match customers with advisors in their demographic. The manager of wealth systems and analytics for the larger California credit union noted: “We look at the service to the member. We want to make sure that we’re getting the member to the right person the first time.”
  • Option of video meetings. Interviewees said Coconut’s video banking system helped them tailor services to customers’ schedules and demographic preferences. The product owner for the bank said: “Being able to offer a video meeting solution was huge. It’s so helpful to customers who work and don’t have time to come to a branch.” The SVP and head of data for the investment firm added that video meetings are very popular with younger customers, while older clients prefer to meet in person. The fact that Coconut supported both options allowed them to tailor their offerings and be more inviting to younger clients, who represent a key growth opportunity. They said: “Because of the preferences of [younger] populations, our video appointment volume increased significantly. We have a 93% remote rate with younger people. But for people over 53, 90% of them come into the branch.”

The western-US credit union, which couldn’t take appointments in its prior environment, received frequent complaints about long lobby wait times in its customer surveys. After moving to Coconut, the credit union saw a 5-point improvement in its Net Promoter ScoreSM.¹³ The credit union’s VP of member service shared: “We send out a member survey with five or six questions and an open comment section. Before Coconut, the theme was long lines and inadequate staffing. Today, those are not even top five categories anymore. The adoption of Coconut has certainly improved our member experience.”

• Improved EX. It can be stressful for lobby-based employees to see a long line of impatient customers or to be confronted with an unfamiliar situation without preparation. The Coconut system helped reduce both sources of employee anxiety. The VP of member service for the western-US credit union said: “It’s stressful when you have lines out the door and it’s like that all day long. If you’re a new employee, you have no idea who’s in the lobby and what they need. If it’s something you’re comfortable with, you’re good. But if the member wants something you haven’t done yet, now you have to get a manager to help. The appointments have helped our newer team members prepare and make sure they’re confident having that conversation.”

• More targeted training. Interviewees said that Coconut data was helping them coach employees for improved service delivery. The assistant manager of service delivery support for the larger California credit union explained: “Before Coconut, we were tracking walk-in wait times, but it was very broad. Coconut is giving us the ability to have better handle times and better estimated wait times. One of the things that our management team is analyzing now is: How long does it take us to do a transaction? Let’s say the allocated time for a new membership is 60 minutes, and we have a team member who takes an hour and a half. Coconut helps us identify that and coach that team member.” 

• Reduced no-shows, cancellations, and lost opportunities. Coconut’s streamlined scheduling system, which includes automated appointment reminders and links to reschedule if needed, increased appointment efficiency from both a productivity perspective and a revenue standpoint. The product owner for the bank said they had tracked a decrease in customer no-shows, which are a drag on overall employee efficiency. The investment firm had a similar experience, though instead of no-shows, they tracked a “bailout” metric, or the percentage of customers who began the appointment-scheduling process but left before completing it. According to the SVP and head of data: “Before, 19% of people would bail out during the scheduling process. With Coconut, we reduced that to essentially zero,” which helped plug a leaky sales funnel.

Flexibility

The value of flexibility is unique to each customer. There are multiple scenarios in which a customer might implement Coconut and later realize additional uses and business opportunities. In particular, interviewees said that Coconut’s ability to provide data insights — which they had not had before — could lead to future cost savings, service improvements, and business growth in several ways, including:

• Staff scheduling optimization. Several interviewees saw the opportunity for Coconut’s demand-data visibility to help them better optimize their staffing. The VP of member service for the western-US credit union explained the potential this way: “On a Wednesday ,we would be fully staffed, and there’d be a few members coming through the doors. Then on a Friday or Saturday, we’d have lines out the door. Coconut has enabled us to see when our members need us. This is when we’re going to schedule people.”

• Smart, scaled growth. The manager of service delivery support for the large California credit union saw the potential for staffing optimization to support less costly expansion. They said: “Branch managers use Coconut to see their volume, so we want to integrate it with a forecasting tool for staff scheduling. And as we move into areas of the state that we don’t currently have a presence in, do we want to have a full staff [in these new branches], or do we want augmented staffing, where one branch supports another via a virtual servicing model?”

• Customer lifecycle insights. Interviewees planned to mine customer journey data from Coconut for a more informed 360-degree view. The product owner for the bank shared: “Today, we’re able to track meeting value in an ad hoc way, but we’re hoping within the next few years, when we upgrade our CRM, we’ll be able to export our Coconut data to track that full customer lifecycle, from when they booked the appointment to when they showed up to the final revenue outcome.”

• More effective marketing. The SVP and head of data for the investment firm discussed how their firm’s marketing approach had evolved over the past several years from broad, brand awareness campaigns to more data-driven, segmented strategies aimed at specific demographics. They said: “Before, our marketing strategy was ‘shoot and pray.’ Now, we target platforms specifically for different demographics based on data, and we’re seeing a higher lift at a lower cost.” While Coconut data had not yet informed those strategies, the interviewee agreed there was potential to use their own first-party data to tailor those outreach efforts.

• Improved compliance. The VP of member service for the western-US credit union said: “Our old processes allowed loan officers to potentially make several errors in an application, so they would spend 30 minutes at the end of every day checking for compliance errors and having to call members back if they needed to correct something. Tightening up our process with Coconut has helped us reduce compliance-related errors from 25% to 12%.” These improvements could potentially reduce auditing costs, compliance penalties, or costly legal fees.

Flexibility would also be quantified when evaluated as part of a specific project (described in more detail in Total Economic Impact Approach).