SAN ANTONIO–Speaking to a group of credit union marketers and business development execs in 2016, John Best built his presentation around analytics. The response, he said, was this: “We all know we have to do analytics; please tell us how!”
This year, Best returned with five ideas on how to use analytics even on a tight budget, along with some other tips in remarks themed, “Five Things Every Credit Union Can Do To Make Itself Better.”
According to Best, these are the five:
Monitoring
Monitoring, said Best, is all about paying attention to small pieces of data that can have big implications. Case in point: a member’s direct deposit stops.
“When direct deposit stops, it’s never good,” said Best. “That’s an important piece of data. We have to stop letting things get away from us, and monitoring is a good way to do this. Ask your IT guy, I just want a report on everyone who had direct deposit and it stops.”
John Best at CUNA MBD Council meeting.
Quoting author Simon Sinek, Best stressed that each CU needs to practice “learn your why.”
“What we need to learn is our members’ why. We don’t know what it is. It’s not enough to find that they stopped using direct deposit, it’s more important to know the why,” he said. “And the first reason is usually that they lost their job or changed their job. How can you help in those situations? They might be moving. A third option is they hate you and have been screaming about it on Twitter and you never did anything, so they left. I believe they are all opportunities.”
Another data point to monitor, according to Best: credit card usage by issuer.
“If I use your credit card all the time, and then I suddenly stop, why? The most likely scenario is someone else got their hooks in me. I found a value proposition better than what you are offering me.”
When he asked everyone in the room how many had their own credit union’s cards, nearly all hands were raised. When he asked how many use it for everything, many hands went down. One person admitted the issue is loyalty points—her credit union doesn’t offer them.
“We have got to do something about these loyalty accounts? What if you offered ‘One free month of Netflix?’ What about double points? What if they bring you their Amazon, their Hulu, their Walmart, their Zappos?”
A third data point to monitor: home banking usage, especially members who logged in once and then never logged in again.
“What’s the why there? I don’t know, but I’d like to know why. I got an email from Netflix saying, ‘Netflix misses me.’ You should send an email saying that home banking misses them. And in the process, you have to discover the why. How many members do you have who get Netflix and pay $10 a month but don’t use your tender? What if you could get every one of those people to move their Netflix account to your card? What’s stopping them? Once we understand the why, we can change the game.”
Collecting
When things become scarce, said Best, it’s time to start collecting.
“Let’s talk about some things to collect. Merchant applications have won the wallet war. It’s time to start hoarding applications. How many merchants’ websites do you have in our members’ wallets? What’s hard about monitoring for Dunkin’ Donuts, Taco Bell? Once that dude puts the Dunkin’ Donuts card in there, it’s there forever. But here’s the good news: we are right at the genesis of this. Beg and plead and offer rewards points to put you in in their wallets.”
Best said credit unions need to know their members’ Facebook handles, their members’ Twitter accounts, and members’ Instagrams.
“All of this data is coming in handy,” said Best. “We’re not collecting this stuff; we’ve missed this boat. We claim to get a lift from digital, but we can’t quantify. As marketers, we need to be able to have quantifiable things we can do because data-driven results are going to be the future.”
Best said credit unions should also be collecting data on history (such as browser), credit card, home banking, mobile, bill pay (mining) and mortgage data. “This is table stakes. Knowing what browser someone uses, statistically, can tell you something about me. It adds depth to your analysis.”
Innovate
Credit unions, said best are not “just risk adverse, we’re risk-phobic. Do you know what an innovative idea is that takes no risk? It’s not an innovative idea anymore. The job of your risk people is to help you to do what you want to do. It’s killing our industry.”
Best asked how many credit unions still had some version of a suggestion box, whether physical or digital. Unfortunately, he said, it often drives an opposite reaction than that intended.
“The process can be a bit demoralizing. If I put 20 ideas in the suggestion box, do you respond to every single person in the suggestion box and thank them for their idea? If you don’t respond to someone on their first five ideas, they aren’t going to give you their sixth idea,” he said. “Every idea should get some feedback. Innovation is cultural; it’s based around discipline. It’s not willy-nilly stuff. A vision without execution is an illusion.”
Best suggested every credit union spend some money and respond to every single thing. “Pick an idea and give them $10,000 and let them executive on it. Who wants to work at a place where your ideas are not valued, where you can only submit your ideas anonymously?”
Default Settings
“I found myself wondering, what are the default settings in a credit union,” observed Best. “We always use the carrot, not the stick.”
As an example, Best recommended that every credit union default into card alerts, and then give members the option to turn them off. Same thing for opting everyone into e-statements, he said. “No one is going to sue you. So, I challenge you to review your default settings.”
Take Questions
According to Best, the only dumb questions are the ones that members are afraid to ask.
“This doesn’t have to be rocket science. Sometimes, it’s just answering people’s questions; that’s all they want.”
Best gave a demo of a simple app he created that allowed a credit union to field questions via an app. “We have to somehow punch through all this noise and just get to the basic blocking and tackling.”
Best also recommended Facebook Bot, which one credit union in the room seconded. The chatbot can even auto-populate commonly asked questions with responses.