Editor’s Note: After credit unions were for the first time rated below banks in terms of customer satisfaction in a recent national survey, CUToday.info has launched expanded coverage over what may be driving the change. As part of that series, Anne Legg is examining a series of service-related issues and also offering free resources to CUToday.info readers.
By Anne Legg
A few months ago, a leading tracker of consumer satisfaction, the American Customer Satisfaction Index, found that for the first time since tracking, banks have surpassed credit unions. This change has been driven by several factors. In this article, we will address two of them, member friction, and the Amazon Effect.
Member friction:
Member friction occurs when member experiences fall below expectations. Friction in one experience may not be enough to cause flight, but when it occurs in many experiences, it does. The sum of member experiences is known as the member journey. Measuring a member's journey effectively requires gathering data on the individual experiences and stringing them together. This is where many credit unions stumble.
Credit unions offer expertise at individual experiences, but because they operate in silos, it creates a fragmented view of the member journey. This inability to identify member journey frictions is a substantial blind spot for credit unions allowing flight to occur when there could have been a save.
Amazon Effect
In addition to this current condition of disconnected member journey insights, there is also the Amazon Effect.
Amazon has been casting a long shadow over much of retail. The Amazon Effect is two-fold. First, it has given the consumer an incredible amount of choice, and second, it has raised expectations for speed in delivery. The consumer now has expectations of 24/7 service and fulfillment.
Attempting to respond and meet this marketplace expectation is incredibly tricky for credit unions. While credit unions have more data than Amazon, they are challenged to connect their 60-100 data systems to create a holistic view of the member journey and create metrics to assess, measure and retain member value.
Credit Union Actions
Take a moment to replay a successful engagement experience and how seemingly effortless it went. Now, think of a friction-filled engagement experience and how impactful it was in the decision to leave or re-engage. A credit union member is doing the same exercise.
The actions a credit union should take to quickly gain insight on the member experience is to perform a friction assessment include:
- Assess current condition with a simple survey of leadership and member contact staff to gain a perceived list of member frictions.
- Create a member journey map to determine a prioritization of actions.
- Build friction-less road map.
For a deeper dive into a friction assessment, please go to https://www.anneleggthrive.com/services
to subscribe to receive instructions on how to access free, exclusively for CUToday.info readers, a friction assessment deck and explainer video.
Anne Legg leads Thrive Strategic Services and can be reached at anne@anneleggthrive.com.