Upgrade The Onboarding Experience

This week, CreditUnions.com looks at strategies for onboarding members, from teaching Apple Pay and remote deposit capture to re-engaging long-term members.

Onboarding presents an opportunity for credit unions to connect with members new or unengaged and show them the ropes. A successful onboarding program underscores a credit union’s full suite of products and services, demonstrates the value of the credit union to the member, and deepens relationships.

Rolling out EMV isn’t as easy as 1-2-3. Credit unions need to properly onboard if they want their members to understand how to use these new cards with chips in them.

Newspaper ads and eye-catching email art are two ways that Montana-based Missoula Federal Credit Union touts the availability of the new fraud-fighting plastic, which like remote-deposit capture and Apple Pay, are raising the bar for credit unions that want to get members up and running on new tech tools.

Read more about the pre-launch marketing, follow-up surveys, and individual attention that are ingredients in the not-so-secret sauce for product onboarding success this week in5 Credit Unions Share How To Onboard EMV, Apple Pay, And RDC.

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 more likely to open a credit card account, open a brokerage account, and take out 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.

Read three approaches from credit unions solving engagement quandaries this week in How To Boost Retention, Reduce Attrition, And Improve Member Engagement.

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.

Read how these institution’s new online, mobile, and app-based capabilities allow first contact and long-term relationship development without a face-to-face connection this week in Don’t Just Onboard, E-Board.

It’s hard to spend time in Tampa Bay, FL, without hearing about the region’s prospects for growth. Florida’s state population added 293,000 residents in 2014. An additional 600,000 people could call Hillsborough County home by 2040. That’s good news for Tampa-based Grow Financial Federal Credit Union. The bi-state credit union with a strong indirect lending portfolio manages to move 40% of those members into at least one other financial product. Read more in Indirect Lending And Onboarding At Grow Financial.

On the other side of the country, California-based Star One Credit Union’s ability to onboard new members and accounts online is one reason its efficiency ratio is among the five strongest for credit unions with $1 billion or more in assets, according to data from Callahan & Associates. The credit union opens approximately 22% of its new memberships online each month. Read more in this week’s Q&A, How Star One Drives Account Growth And Efficiency With Online Openings.

For credit unions that don’t want to completely overhaul their onboarding program, check out the Graphic Of The Week 4 Ways To Improve Member Onboarding. It features small tips that can make a big difference on the outcome of any onboarding campaign.

Happy Reading.

July 13, 2015

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