How First Bank Freed Up Higher-Value Work by Transitioning to Statement Processing with HC3

It started out as an exercise in operational improvement. It ended up being a values-driven transformation that improved customer and employee experience.

In Carmi, Illinois, First Bank has spent decades serving clients across 12 branches with a philosophy rooted in treating others the way you want to be treated. That belief shapes how the bank cares for account holders, supports its employees, and chooses the partners that help it run.

When First Bank began looking for a new approach to statement processing, they were in pursuit of efficiency gains. But as they sought a vendor, the team realized how important it is to have partners whose values aligned with their own. The search led to HC3, and what began as an operations project led to improved experiences for the bank’s customers and its employees.

The Challenge: Refining a Legacy Process That Was Showing Its Age

For years, First Bank ran its statement operation in-house, anchored by a massive printer, a leased stuffing machine, and two long-time employees with more than three decades of experience between them. With both team members approaching retirement and the bank committed to doing more with less, leadership knew a change was on the horizon.

The statements themselves had the feel of a previous era. “Our statements looked like they were printed on a typewriter,” said Lindsay Schoenheit, VP, Senior Operations Officer at First Bank. “We’re a digital shop. We’re always encouraging customers to bank online, and then we’d mail them something that looked like it was from a different era. It just didn’t match who we are.”

The manual process created real hardships for staff, too. During heavy statement cycle weeks, employees came in on Saturdays and even during vacation to keep statements moving. One employee routinely loaded up to 2,500 statements into her personal vehicle and drove them to the post office — through ice, snow, or 100-degree humidity. “Who wants that job?” Schoenheit said. “We thought, how are we going to recruit someone into that role?”
There were privacy and risk considerations, too. Without tracking, the bank had no way to trace a statement if a client reported it missing. And manual stuffing — without cameras or oversight — introduced a reputational risk no community bank wants to carry.

Finding a Partner That Felt Like Family

First Bank met HC3 at an industry conference, and the conversation immediately provided a sense of shared values. “When a company has a good culture, they tend to have a good product,” Schoenheit said. “That stood out to us right away.”

Implementation Without Pressure

First Bank runs a lot of projects, and the team knew what rushed implementations felt like. HC3 was different. Faith Hohman, AVP, Process Improvement Analyst at First Bank, who worked closely on the project, credits HC3’s implementation lead with making the experience stand out.

“We delayed the project more than once because we wanted the statements to be perfect,” Hohman said. “We had so many questions and side requests — and they helped us through each one. We never felt rushed. We never felt like we were a box they were trying to check.”
When First Bank uncovered data cleanup needed on its core before go-live, HC3 stayed patient. “We’ve been on projects where the vendor pushes to meet a date no matter what,” Schoenheit said. “They stayed right there with us until it was right.”

Solving Real Problems with Simple Answers

One of the earliest wins addressed a privacy issue that had quietly frustrated First Bank’s clients for years. With combined statements, the legacy system would sometimes print a second account’s information on the same page as the first. For clients submitting statements to the Social Security Administration or the IRS, that meant exposing unrelated financial details they never intended to share.

“It was a complex problem, and HC3 solved it with a simple answer,” Schoenheit said. HC3 integrated logic that starts each new account on its own page, so clients can hand over exactly what they need and nothing more. “We never felt like HC3 told us no,” Hohman adds.

Compliance Support and Marketing Flexibility

When First Bank wanted to streamline CD renewal notices by attaching a generic disclosure instead of a separately printed one, HC3 did more than build the change. They joined the bank’s compliance meetings, brought redacted examples from other banks, and gave First Bank’s compliance officer the confidence to move forward. “They came to the table and said, ‘Other banks are doing this,’” Hohman recalls. “That was incredibly helpful.”

HC3’s Campaign Manager also gave First Bank’s marketing team the ability to add graphics and promotional messaging directly to statements. “There was essentially no advertising option before,” Hohman said. “Now we can design almost anything we want.” Branch staff have heard unprompted compliments from clients about the modernized look — a rare thing when it comes to bank statements.

A Win for Employees and a Look Ahead

The change has been transformational for First Bank’s team. Weekends and vacation days are no longer interrupted by statement runs. New employees are stepping into roles built around meaningful work. And once the current equipment lease ends, the bank projects roughly $15,000 in annual savings.

“We value our people,” Schoenheit said. “Our mentality is the golden rule: treat others the way you want to be treated. That’s why we do this work, and it’s what we saw reflected back to us at HC3.”

Looking ahead, First Bank plans to move 100% of its notices to HC3, explore tax form processing this summer, and transition electronic statements onto HC3’s platform to give clients archive and retrieval functionality they don’t have today to help clients self-serve and free the team for higher-value work.

“I recommend HC3 150%. I’ve recommended HC3 to everyone who will listen,” Schoenheit said. “They’ve treated us like partners from the very first conversation, and it shows in everything we do together.”