KEY WEST, Fla.–Four credit unions that have found ways to target, attract and become relevant to Millennial-age and younger members shared their strategies and experiences in doing so during NAFCU’s CEOs and Senior Executives Conference here.
Here is a look at what each person had to say:
April Clovis, CEO, MSU FCU, East Lansing, Mich.
“Most of our members and employees are Millennials. The average age of our membership is about 38.5. What we are working on is a personalized omni channel experience in addition to just mobile. People have a misconception Millennials don’t want face-to-face experiences, but in our credit union we find they come in more often than any other group.”
Brad Smith, EVP/Chief Strategy Officer, Frontwave Credit Union, Oceanside, Calif.
“We, too, have a large Millennial population, including a lot of young Marines. About 50% of our membership is between 18 and 24 years of age. They are actually pretty needy with face-to-face help. We position ourselves to educate them on the financial tools at their disposal. They do want digital and are very unforgiving when it doesn’t work properly. We use (Net Promoter Score) evaluations to make sure things are working properly. We have a consultative approach in our branches and moved away from tellers to universal associates so those folks can handle a wider breadth of issues. This is our second iteration in a rebrand and we delved deeply into how we become hyperlocal to local communities and young Marines, and how we become relevant.”
Tom Kane, President/CEO, Fortera Credit Union, Clarksville, Tenn.
“The average age of our members is 37. We have made a huge commitment to a new brand and new culture (following name change) and are betting we will be the connection Millennials will want to do business with. We are getting a lot of traction with that market. I think it’s the right play for us to make. Navy Fed, PenFed, several billion-dollar credit unions from Nashville and Florida are in our market. We can’t outprice Navy, we can’t out-deliver PenFed’s online suite of services. So, our play is the culture will lead for us, as will the big investments we make in our communities. We give employees eight hours a month to volunteer in the community. We don’t want people to see us as a bank, but as a partner. We do focus groups with the community and local university. That’s the niche we think is going to be successful for Fortera.”
Don DiMatteo, Managing Director-Member Experience, State Department FCU, Washington
“We have 84,000 members who are not heavily Millennials. If you have silver hair or no hair you belong to State Department Federal Credit Union. I believe we need to simplify everything, and I know that’s broad, but that’s from a digital and non-digital perspective. I challenge you, if you haven’t done this in a while, to go back to all your system vendor partners and have them do an analysis on the latest gizmo they have that we don’t know about. My second challenge would be to ask your members and ask your teens what are the pain points?”