By Michael Mattone
Over the past few years, there have been big conversations in credit union land about a “full-scale branding/awareness campaign” that will help our movement solve an issue that has seemingly lasted since our inception: Why don’t more people know about and do business with credit unions? With the launch of CUNA’s “Open Your Eyes” campaign, credit unions across the country are more committed than ever to solving the awareness issue once and for all.
Say what you want about the campaign, and I’ve heard many different opinions, both positive and negative, and will reserve my personal opinion on the campaign for another day, but with a recent study from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) showing that for the first time in its history, banks have scored higher than credit unions, we need to ask ourselves an extremely important question for not only the success of a national branding campaign, but for credit unions as a whole: When someone’s eyes are opened to a credit union, what do they see?
A Marketing Fundamental
Any good marketer can tell you that one of the most important factors that makes up a successful campaign is that the product or service you are selling actually lives up to its promise. An anecdote I used when discussing this point at the Digital Onboarding Financial Services Engagement Forum in Boston is “you shouldn’t write a check that you can’t cash.” Seeing this latest report from the ACSI surprised me, because our movement just invested a lot of time and money to amplify the message of “WE ARE BETTER THAN BANKS.” With research results proving otherwise for the first time ever, did we just write a check we can’t cash?
Are You Missing the Point?
If you are reading this and saying, “This is nonsense, my members love our credit union, and we are better than banks,” then you are missing the point. An industry-wide campaign is just that: industry-wide.
So, for someone who has never heard of a credit union, what if they don’t end up on your website, and go to another credit union website that was last updated in 2002? Or what if they don’t end up in your beautiful and welcoming branch, but end up at a branch with a two-hour wait that looks and feels like the local DMV? Once we as a credit union cooperative ventured off into a campaign to raise awareness for all credit unions, it is now up to every credit union to improve their overall member experience from the moment someone considers membership.
Preparing for 2020
As we prepare ourselves for 2020 and beyond, it is more important than ever that your institution is committed to raising the bar for all facets of your member experience. We all must focus on continued improvement, and challenge other credit unions to do the same. Make the necessary investments to ensure all of your members are satisfied with their credit union relationship.
And make sure that when a potential new member “opens their eyes” to credit unions, your credit union is not the reason they close their eyes – and their wallet – to credit unions for good.
Michael Mattone is the Vice President of Marketing and Member Experience at Hudson River Financial Federal Credit Union in Mohegan Lake, N.Y.