By Ray Birch
CRAWFORDVILLE, Fla.—With just one tiny office in this small town, and without drive-through lanes, one credit union compressed months of work into a week to open a new location to serve members during the pandemic.
Tallahassee-Leon FCU, partnering with United Solutions, was able to shift operations from its location at 2655-C Crawfordville Highway a few miles up the road to 2190 Crawfordville Highway.
It was all done with the pandemic bearing down on the nation and stay-at-home orders spreading and CEO Lisa Brown realizing the office that was in place—all 1,100 square feet, simply would not be capable of serving members.
“We saw what was happening with the coronavirus, and financial institutions having to shut down branches and use only their drive-throughs,” said Brown. “Our small office without a drive-through would be unusable, and we would have had to send members 40 miles north to our closest Tallahassee office.”
The $58-million credit union, headquartered in Tallahassee, was planning to close the small location closer to the end of the year and move it into new space. Tallahassee-Leon FCU had planned to take its time, remodel the location that was once a bank branch, and get started on those efforts when it took over the office at the end of March.
‘We Could Not Wait’
“In February, we began the due-diligence process and scheduled the purchase of the new office at the end of March. And then everything changed,” said Brown. “We began monitoring the COVID-19 situation closely as news reports began coming out. We knew that one of our tactics to address a pandemic was to close lobby access and service members through drive-through lanes. Knowing this was an issue in Crawfordville, we knew we had to act quickly. We made the decision to expedite the purchase and began mobilizing vendor partners to accommodate an early opening in the event it became necessary. On March 16 we made the decision to relocate our branch operations as soon as possible to service members in the best possible way. What would normally be a about a six-month process, we pulled off in a week.
Lisa Brown in front of new Crawfordville office
“We just could not wait,” continued Brown. “Not only did the small location have no drive-through lanes, there is not enough space inside for social distancing. Our three employees there typically put their lunch plates on top of the vault when they eat. The location is that small.”
With extensive remodeling set aside, the focus was on getting the branch up and running, and that meant getting it connected on the CU’s network.
Jeff Barrage, CIO at United Solutions, said work that normally takes months was compressed into about a week.
“We had to set up local and network security,” explained Barrage. “We had to work with a telecommunications provider, like Verizon, and ask for a private MPLS circuit. The lead time for that is normally 90 to 120 days. We had to implement a firewall from United Solutions that is communications provider agnostic. We accelerated the implementation of our consumer base DSL connection…At that point the credit union is essentially online and able to securely conduct transactions.”
“We had to move quick because our presence in this community is very needed,” added Brown. “Not only do we have a great deal of member foot traffic, we process about 1,200 shared branch transactions each month.”
The Real Challenge
Brown told CUToday.info the credit union was unsure it would be able to pull off the move and open by the end of March.
“But we are there,” she said one day before the new office was set to open. “There has been no loss of service to our members and to the community and we will now be able to continue to serve them through the pandemic.”
Brown said while the technical and physical challenges of moving to a new office so quickly were daunting, what ended up being a larger issue is communicating the change to the community and its members.
“It wasn’t like we could take out an ad in the local paper; it only comes out once a week, so the timing did not work,” she said. “Communication was a challenge. So we turned to social media, sent out emails, and hung up signs in our office and around the town. We had signs printed and hung in one day. We went out on Facebook and notified the town—it’s a very small, rural community. Our members told us they were so thankful for our efforts, keeping them from having to drive a lot of miles back and forth to Tallahassee.”
Jim Giacobbe
Extraordinary Effort
Jim Giacobbe, CEO of Tallahassee-based United Solutions, emphasized what the credit union accomplished was “extraordinary.”
“They didn't have to do it,” Giacobbe said. “Everyone is dealing with the coronavirus right now…taking care of their families and friends. But here you have Lisa and her credit union stepping outside of that and saying the members are my focus right now. I know I have all these other things going on, but we’re setting that aside to get this branch open. This was an important move for this town, because many members do not use digital services and they need physical access to the credit union, especially now.”
Tallahassee-Leon is supporting its membership, too, with emergency loans, skip-a-payments, and more, noted Brown.