By Frank J. Diekmann
Here are a couple of notes from the recent NAFCU meeting in Hawaii written somewhere in the night sky over the Pacific…
It All Seemed Perfect…
I thought I had finally found the perfect job, one with delightfully little labor involved and precious few of those pain-in-the-butt customers: Ukelele store employee. And it came with a bonus—it’s in Hawaii. But I was, as I am greatly disappointed to report, very much in the wrong. In the lobby of my hotel tower in Hawaii was a ukulele store, and my first reaction was where do I apply? I mean really, how much floor traffic jams a ukulele store? Yet as I stood there--and the same held true every subsequent time I passed by--I learned a little-known secret: ukulele stores, at least in Hawaii, are the jam.
So, there are either numerous (but little-known) sects dedicated to these members of the lute family, or there are a heck of a lot of mainlanders getting caught up in the moment and then arriving home with an object headed for a future garage sale.
We Have an Abacus
A vendor with a tech company who had a booth inside the NAFCU trade show sought to make small talk with a passing CU board member by asking, “So who’s your core system?” To which the board member replied, “I don’t believe we have one.”
We Love New Cars, But…
Bernie Brenner of TrueCar had some interesting insights on the car-shopping process, saying the two pain points for consumer are comparison shopping and the trust gap. “We all love the idea of getting a new car. We all hate the journey of getting it,” he said. “All this data out there actually creates a huge problem for the auto shopper, because the journey has so many options.”
The opportunity for credit unions, he said, is to help auto dealers build trust around the financing piece as consumers take that journey.
And it’s a journey that’s anything but linear. He showed a graphic that mapped out the process for buyers, showing them going from online to offline to a dealership, and then returning to those steps over and over.
“The question for us is how do we interact with them in this process, and where is the right time to help them with the loan,” he said.
One big aggravation for car shoppers, said Brenner, is a consumer can “go to four different websites, and at times the MSRP and the invoice on the same vehicle is not the same. So, you ask, who can I trust?”
The emotional spectrum of car shopping, he said, includes consumed, confused, overwhelmed, anxious, and frustrated.
Despite all that, said Brenner, ultimately there are two places credit unions should insert themselves in the car-buying process: “Early and throughout.”
The Millennial Paradox
As CUToday.info has reported previously, one piece of conventional wisdom that has been shown to be neither conventional nor wise is that Millennials don’t like branches, when in fact they embrace branches like a photo app.
Now it turns out the same trait can be found in car shopping. TrueCar’s Brenner said that the more of a digital auto shopper/buyer a consumer is, “the more they seek a rewarding, physical experience. You would think they would want it all online. But there is something about going physically into a dealership to get that to happen. Sixty percent of digital natives visit more than two dealers. Just 47% of digital laggards do.”
You Call That Applause? Hit the Floor
Indicating he was a bit disappointed with the response his NAFCU audience had given him, keynoter Vincent Boles, a retired Army two-star general, told the group: “There’s nothing wrong in this room that 40 pushups and a four-mile run wouldn’t cure.”
Among some of the one-liners and other observations shared by Boles:
- He grew up under a father who owned several bars in New York City. “My dad’s hiring philosophy was he would rather breed the help than hire them.”
- “You better get along with Millennials,” he advised, “because they’ll be managing your retirement fund pretty soon.”
You can find reporting on Mr. Boles’ presentation here.
Perhaps Rephrase That
One credit union exec speaking to a NAFCU breakout session offered this comment during a presenation:
“There is nothing better than when one of our members calls and says, ‘My husband just died’…” Say what? The speaker was actually referencing the life insurance the credit union frequently sells to borrowers that helps protect survivors.
Worth the Registration Fee Alone
Another speaker at the NAFCU meeting tossed out this penetrating insight: “The people we see in the branch tend to be people who come to the branch.”
You Have 6 Seconds to Read This
Credit unions were told, “The Snapchat generation is used to having information constantly coming at them. Email is too slow to communicate with them.”
Perhaps He Was on Snapchat
After a breakout session presentation on digital marketing, the first question asked of the speaker was, “Tell me about cash-accepting ATMs.”
Frank J. Diekmann is Cooperator in Chief of CUToday.info and can be reached at Frank@CUToday.info or @FrankCUToday.