HOUSTON—It’s nice when someone puts in a good word for the credit union. It’s even nicer when the credit union knows who to thank for the referral.
That’s the thrust of one new idea percolating up from the Filene Research Institute’s i3 program that is now working to move from the incubator stage to full-fledged market offering.
Called “CU Toot,” it is a referral app designed to help credit unions seamlessly tap into the power of organic growth through member and employee referrals, while tracking results and assigning rewards at the tap of a finger. CU Toot is being featured here as part of a Innovation Week, a joint effort by CUToday.info and Filene.
Projects at i3 are team-based, and those responsible for creating, testing and bringing to market CU Toot are Kayce Bell, COO with Alabama Credit Union; Mary Beth Spuck, CEO at TwinStar Credit Union; Mark Hamid of FirstLight FCU, and Brett Wooden of Cy-Fair FCU.
Speaking on behalf of the team, Wooden said the idea for CU Toot emerged from early brainstorming sessions when one person observed how addicted they had become to the ride-sharing app Uber, which includes a refer-a-friend feature that results in giving a credit to the person making the referral.
“We started to discuss how to do something like that within credit unions,” said Wooden. “The #1 reason a person joins a credit union is typically family and friends. Credit unions have a lot of ways to track that, but it’s often very old school and uses paper or an Excel spread sheet. “
The resulting challenge, he observed, is the credit union has no way to effectively reward the member or an employee who is bringing in new members.
With its project idea now better defined, the group began looking at the numerous related apps that are already in the market outside of credit unions.
“Our idea was an engine where you could use Twitter, text, email or Facebook and just one app for all of them,” explained Wooden. “So if I just joined Cy-Fair and I want to tell my family and friends, it could be done right there in the app. There would be an opportunity to invite those family and friends to join.”
Customizable App
Using a link, the credit union could offer a reward to the person making the referral and to the all the people to whom the referral is sent, such as a discount on the membership fee. The idea is to allow CU Toot to be customized for every credit union user, said Wooden.
Wooden, who enjoys doing web design work and coding, had other members of the team send to him user interfaces that they liked, elements of which he used in mocking up CU Toot’s interface. The team then partnered with Baltimore-based Horsetail Technologies to build out the beta.
According to Filene, a two-phase approach was used to determine the viability of CU Toot. In the first phase, a survey asked if credit unions would utilize a referral app for membership growth and employee referrals. The survey was completed by 167 individuals from the credit union community who evaluated the CU Toot concept for functionality and likelihood of use, and determined whether the prototype either lacked or needed to modify its functionality.
The second phase tested a working prototype created by Horsetail Technologies, Inc. Three credit unions initially signed up to pilot the app: Alabama Credit Union, Cy-Fair Federal Credit Union and TwinStar Credit Union.
“We got some good response from that,” said Wooden. “You also want to make sure that you pass it on to people who are your strong advocates.”
Leveraging Ability To Track Codes
Wooden noted that the CU Toot app takes advantage of the fact most core systems offer the option to provide promotional codes that can be tracked.
“In our system you just create a user name and password and you are given a unique referral code,” he said. “When you tweet, Facebook, or email you can just click on it and it automatically crates a unique identifier that allows us to track it.”
In Cy-Fair Credit Union’s case, he said it prefers to offer a waiver of the $10 membership fee as an incentive. “I think you get a better member if you do that vs. giving a way a toaster or $100. Those people stay for three months and then they leave. “
Another benefit of CU Toot: Being able to see why family and friends are offering a recommendation.
Wooden said the team is now at the point where it is seeking to formally build out CU Toot and is seeking funding to do so.
As for the i3 experience, Wooden, who is in his second and last year as an “i3er,” said what he is really taking way from those two years is the “thinking and process that Filene ingrains in you. In year one you learn how to take an idea to beta. What I really love is that you have the ability to fail. You don’t hear ‘but,’ you hear ‘and.’ I really enjoyed being part of such a dynamic group. Our group is made up of people in different roles in the organization. All have unique talents. Often within credit unions you don’t get to work with such a diverse group. Another takeaway for me has been the networking aspect. I was audited by NCUA as part of a normal audit and there were some things I needed help with, and they were able to help me. And the Filene people have been phenomenal.”