By Tulsi Dharmarajan
Technology has significantly changed the way credit unions operate and it remains a vital component in the evolving member experience.
Whether conducting business in person, over the phone, or online via the web, social media, or mobile devices today’s CU member has multiple channels to choose from. At every one of these touchpoints, members are interacting with your brand and expressing their opinion about the experience.
Today’s credit unions put a lot of effort into making experiences efficient, personal, and memorable. The big challenge is how to make all of the channels deliver a seamless and consistent member experience while optimizing the unique assets that each provides. Similarly, CUs need to measure those experiences to ensure the strategies are successful. The solution is to adopt an omni-channel approach using the five-step process below.
1. Map the Member Journey.
A well-designed omni-channel program begins with mapping the member journey, comprised of any and all member interactions or touch points across all divisions and business units. Invite marketing, product, sales, services, and support teams to help with the process. Third-party software is available to make this process easier.
2. Identify and Optimize the Listening Posts.
Once you’ve inventoried existing member engagement touch points, identify the listening posts. A listening post is any channel where member data resides, including traditional, such as phone and call center logs; mobile, such as email, feedback forms, and SMS feedback; and social media. Additionally, identify third-party systems that can be used to connect and unify the information in a single location.
Next, optimize these existing feedback channels by including better branding, improving mobile support, and assessing other ways to maximize response rates. Introduce new feedback channels to piggyback on existing channels using a mobile first approach. Members expect mobile experiences to translate to other channels.
4. Reiterate the Brand across Channels
A CU’s brand should be reflected visually and experientially as appropriate for every channel, whether that’s a branch, kiosk, or mobile app. Consistent messaging, tone, and visual design can increase brand exposure and capitalize on brand affinity, resulting in higher response rates. Enforcing brand guidelines across all forms of communications and channels is especially critical for credit unions with distributed teams.
5. Democratize Data & Take Action
Use reporting tools to provide holistic visualizations of the member story. Choosing a common loyalty or satisfaction metric and maintaining the same scale across channels is helpful to benchmark the member across channels. Aggregating multiple data sources into a single scorecard view makes it easy to identify trends and key drivers for change. Finally, communicate your findings through shared reports and dashboards.
6. Iterate
The creation of a sustainable program is an iterative process and requires measurement to identify required changes. Measuring the cost effectiveness of the channel and the cost per interaction helps identify the overall ROI of the channel. Integrating feedback with metrics from CRM systems provides insights into the impact on upsell and overall growth and helps refine channel prioritization and the development of a more robust omni-channel strategy.
No matter which omni-channel strategies and tactics you adopt, keep in mind that every touchpoint and every channel is an opportunity to improve and influence the holistic member journey.
Tulsi Dharmarajan is Director Product Management for MaritzCX, a customer experience software and services company. She has more than 20 years of experience in the feedback management and customer experience space, where she has held roles in engineering, product management and design.