When it comes to which lender a member will choose to financetheir car loan, credit unions should probably not count so much oninterest rates but more on how easy and quickly they can respondback to that potential borrower.

Those are some of the findings from a new report from theFilene Research Institute, Predicting Members'Choice of Auto Lender: Borrowing from Credit Unions orElsewhere?

“Even with the decreasing auto loan interest rates andincreasing credit union market share that began in the late 1980s,24% of members surveyed chose the competition as their autolenders,” reads the report authored by Luis G. Dopico.

Based on data collected from a 100-question survey of thousandsof members from seven credit unions, the research revealed thatcredit unions' relationship strengths play a surprisingly largerole in auto loan selection, while their historical pricingstrength seems to be less important.

Filene found that the best predictors of members' choice of autolender included more intangible aspects of the lender such as theborrower relationship in members' past auto loans. For instance, members who placed more importance oncustomer service were far more likely (by 41%) to choose a creditunion for their auto loan.

There were similar increases in credit union share for ease ofcontacting the lender (40%) and lender responsiveness (38%).

Other factors that were surprisingly not useful predictors ofmembers' choice of auto lender include measures of members'satisfaction with their specific credit union, commitment to creditunions in general, relationship with other financial institutions,and preferred means of communication from their credit union.

Respondents undoubtedly preferred more attractive loan terms,according to the data. However, questions about more quantifiableloan terms such as low interest rates, flexible repaymentstructures and down payment requirements were not nearly as usefulas predictors of members' choice of auto lender.

While the research did not find a clear correlation betweenpreferred communication channels and choosing a credit union for anauto loan, it did reveal a large and consistent preference acrossmembers for electronic information.

The credit union website is the most preferred communicationchannel, followed by email and then by credit union employees. Theleast preferred are branch brochures and signage and socialmedia.

Filene said Enterprise Car Sales provided support for the report.