Improve Member Experience

This week, CreditUnions.com features success stories from credit unions across the industry. Whether by resolving complaints, or onboarding new members here's how credit unions are improving the member experience.

As member-owned and operated institutions, credit unions focus time, effort, and resources on member experiences.

This week, CreditUnions.com features success stories from credit unions across the industry. Whether by resolving complaints or onboarding new members, here’s how credit unions are improving the member experience.

In 2015, formal compliants registered against BECU via the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Consumer Complaint Database totaled roughly one complaint for every 41,000 of its members.

I don’t see very many complaints, says Leslie Frazier, the credit union’s retail experience support manager.

As the lead of a team responsible for improving processes in BECU’s 42-branch network, Frazier’s charge is to eliminate waste and improve the member experience. This includes handling complaints.

In A Complaint By Any Other Name Is Member Feedback, by Callahan Associate Editor Erik Payne, Frazier shares three best practices for complaint resolution and management.

Member engagement is critical to the long-term success of a credit union. According to a June 2015 study by Deluxe Marketing, financial institutions can lift the profitability of checking account holders by turning inactive users into fully engaged ones. That’s because a fully engaged user is:

  • 3.7x more likely to open a credit card account
  • 6.3x more likely to open a brokerage account
  • 6.7x more likely to open a mortgage

One way credit unions are increasing member engagement is through email and direct mail marketing aimed at existing members. Such re-boarding reaffirms the institution’s value, boosts activity, and increases retention.

From the development of a re-boarding program to a team-based approach, in How To Boost Retention, Reduce Attrition, And Improve Member Engagement, Payne profiles how three credit unions are solving their engagement quandaries.

When Orange County’s Credit Union started mapping the member experience in 2014, its motivation was simple. It knew delivering good member experiences isn’t good enough in today’s increasingly competitive environment.

According to Forrester’s 2014 annual customer experience index (CXi), even notoriously low-scoring service providers are improving significantly.

Improvements in industries that traditionally have poor customer service apply upward pressure on other industries to step up their game as well.

To learn how the credit union improved its member experience by aligning its entire organization, read How To Turn A Good Member Experience Into A Great One by Callahan contributor Sharon Simpson.

After its 2011 merger with Addison Avenue Credit Union,First Tech Federal Credit Union’s Net Promoter Score soon began to drop. The credit union’s chief retail and marketing officer, Stephen Owen, was puzzled. When he dug into the data, Owen discovered the credit union’s contact strategies post-merger had not kept pace with its rapid membership growth.

In the branches, only about 3% of new members were being contacted by us for follow-up in the first 30 days after establishing their membership, said Owen during a speech at the 2015 Member Loyalty Live Conference in Phoenix, AZ.

Those members the credit union was missing included a large swath of high-tech members who visited branches less often than previously. So starting in late 2014, First Tech’s 12-person marketing team launched a series of largely digital campaigns.

To read the credit union’s tips to ensure the right messages reach the right members at the right times, read Win The War Of The Inbox. Here’s How. by Callahan Senior Director of Marketing & Engagement Aaron Pugh.
Michigan State University Federal Credit Union and USAlliance Federal Credit Union both have tech-savvy fields of membership, long experience in bringing on new members online while holding down application abandonment rates, and established methods for following up on that initial experience. Now, both are rolling out new ways to join via mobile.

In Don’t Just Onboard, E-Board, Callahan Senior Writer Marc Rapport shows how the two credit union’sonline, mobile, and app-based capabilities allow first contact and long-term relationship development without face-to-face interaction.

Happy Reading!

March 28, 2016

Keep Reading

View all posts in:
More on:
Scroll to Top