FISHERS, IND. -- Getting back to the roots of providing financial services and striving for a consistent level of service across all channels were among the points emphasized by Ed Brett, e-commerce channel manager at Westminster Savings Credit Union, during his presentation at the CU Water Cooler Symposium on Thursday.
Brett said the credit union business is not about marketing, government, politics, employee engagement, social media, or any number of other things. "We are free to concentrate on banking and we should be excellent bankers," he said.
He challenged the idea that social media provides value to members. Westminster's members, he said, have told the credit union they don't want it to be on Facebook--they want better rates and more convenient services.
He also challenged the dictum that people don't want to be treated like numbers. "People do want to be a number," he said. "They just want to get their banking done and leave."
Credit unions should therefore measure their success by how little they inconvenience their members, he said. For example, if members want to spend 30 minutes a month on banking, they shouldn't have to spend an hour due to the online banking site being down.
Another way to evaluate performance, he said, is the ability to attract people who want to do business with the credit union not because it's a credit union, but because it's good at providing financial services.
Watch a livestream of the conference at CUTimes.com/watercooler.
