Best Of Member Experience 2019

Five ways credit unions are making it easier for members to conduct their financial business and live their lives.

Amazon, Apple, Starbucks, and others have raised the bar for how consumers define great service, and credit unions are rising to the challenge.

As the mobile channel increasingly becomes the touchpoint of choice for members, credit unions are making the mobile interface intuitive, insightful, and effective in helping members accomplish what they need to. In their pursuit of providing a superior service standard, credit unions are building consistency across call centers, online, and mobile channels while reinventing physical branches to foster discussion and not just deposits.

In the past year, CreditUnions.com has covered myriad ways credit unions are reducing friction in the member experience while driving deeper engagement. Here are five.

One App To Serve Them All

Seven major systems conversions at Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union ($2.3B Saint Paul, MN) has allowed the Gopher State cooperative to roll out an entirely new experience for members, one that allows complete digital self-service.

Whatever the member wants to do in a branch or at the call center, we wanted them to be able to do digitally, says Maha Brauch, director of digital services at Affinity Plus. The focus was self-service.

Don’t start 2020 until you’ve caught up on the best success stories from 2019. Check out CreditUnions.com for our favorite pieces from the past 12 months.

Today, members can enroll through the credit union’s app, self-serve in a lockout, and apply for products, including loans. They have robust e-statement functionality and consistent account balance and transaction history presented in one location. And, they have a secure chat. They can also login via touchID, pay others, transfer funds, deposit checks, and more.

Getting there wasn’t easy, but super functionality has brought with it superior experiences. Learn more in A Mobile App That Shines With 5 Stars.

The Right Staff For The Right Experience

Christian Community Credit Union ($672.7M, San Dimas, CA) was an industry trailblazer when it dedicated a position to the member experience four years ago Today, Christian Community looks closely at the everyday interactions between employees and members to uncover ways to improve processes at a department level.

Two years ago, I began going into each of the member-facing departments to see what members and our own team were experiencing firsthand, says Charlie Allen, vice president of member experience.

This systematic approach has contributed to a significant increase in the credit union’s net promoter score and reviews. For those members who are unhappy, the credit union tracks and addresses pain points via an online request tracking system.

Learn more about Allen’s role and why it matters at today’s credit union in What’s In A Name: Vice President Of Member Experience.

On-Time Banking

Walking into a credit union branch can be a gamble for members. Will it be crowded? Will the person working the teller line be able to handle a particular request? Will the time spent be worth it?

Enter in-branch queuing and online appointment scheduling, which are eliminating one of the biggest pain points prevalent in the legacy branching experience: the unknown.

Digital Federal Credit Union ($9.1B, Marlborough, MA) implemented online appointment scheduling four years ago; and Michigan State University Federal Credit Union ($4.5B, East Lansing, MI) aims to launch in 2020. By partnering with third-party vendors that specialize in these technologies, credit unions are giving members the power to bank where they want, when they want, and with whom they want.

Learn more in The Banker Will See You Now.

The Human Touch

Affinity Federal Credit Union ($3.5B, Basking Ridge, NJ) is using robots to complete routine processes and free-up time for contact center and branch staff. In turn, those employees are focusing on providing the human touch for the member experience.

The New Jersey cooperative is using robotic process automation (RPA) techniques to power two processes called SARA and AURA, which automate account opening and member address changes, respectively. Business transformation officer Charlie White and workforce manager Marc Conover are helping lead the effort, which fits nicely with the tech-savvy credit union’s other innovations underway in areas such as business analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.

In Let The Robots Automate. Let The Humans Serve. White and Conover talk about RPA and how Affinity FCU uses it in service of the member experience.

DIT: Do It Themselves

Education and awareness underpin a superior experience at Wright-Patt Credit Union ($4.9B, Beavercreek, OH).

We start by educating the member at the time they open an account, says Kim Riley, vice president of service delivery at Wright-Patt.

The credit union’s Virtual Branch is a contact center operation devoted to online account openers, but team efforts toward education include a variety of touchpoints, including front-line staff, the marketing department, social media, and the website.

Don’t Stop. There’s More.

A 2018 a global survey by Forrester Consulting identified customer retention/loyalty and customer experience as the top two business priorities for global companies across eight industries. Grow revenue came in at No. 3. Credit unions have long touted the benefits of providing a superior customer experience, and the pieces in this Callahan Collection showcase the different ways credit unions are doing just that.

A Guide To Member Experience

To ensure quality experiences at Langley Federal Credit Union ($3.0B, Newport News, VA), the $3.0 billion cooperative is considering adding artificial intelligence technology the credit union anticipates would reduce by 40% the number of calls that need to go to a live representative.

This will allow our representatives to have more in-depth conversations with our members that are focused on building relationships, says Kristi Forehand, assistant vice president of the contact center at Langley FCU.

These efforts and more at the two credit unions work to encourage do-it-yourselfers while also maintaining a something-for-everyone approach to member service. Learn more in In Search Of The Self-Service Member.

 

December 23, 2019

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