When CU Grow CEO James Robert Lay in Houston asked a client about the role of the financial institution's website, he said the site should be treated and viewed like a branch, like the No. 1 sales channel.

“However, if our website were a branch, the weeds would be growing outside and the paint would be peeling off the walls,” the client said.

Chances are prospective members are going to see your website before they see your branches. And expectations, particularly among young consumers, have changed when it comes to a website experience. Those consumer expectations mean credit unions need to modernize their site to keep and attract members.

But when a credit union decides its time for a total website makeover, what is the process like? Where do you begin? What are the latest trends? And what are the must-have site features that can help the credit union effectively market products and services?

Those are questions that Derik Krauss, co-founder of BloomCU.com in Orem, Utah, is asked all the time by his credit union clients.

While these questions are important, answering the why questions first is crucial because they get to the heart of what is most important to a credit union and its members.

At the first meeting to launch the website redesign project, Krauss surprises his clients by asking a simple, fundamental question: Why does your credit union exist?

“Some people may ask, wait, what does that question have to do with redesigning a website?” Krauss said. “It has everything to do with it because your website is just an extension of your credit union. For whatever reason, your credit union exists because it is the same reason your website exists, and that question does end up facilitating a really good conversation.”

Earlier this year, Krauss had this conversation during a strategy session with the $516 million HFS Federal Credit Union.

Ultimately, the Hilo, Hawaii-based cooperative concluded that it existed to help members with their financial needs.

Then Krauss asked how does the credit union measure its success?

He expected to hear a list of metrics like, number of members, checking accounts, auto loans, etc.

Although he thought a list of metrics would be the best answer to his question, Kraus instead heard a better answer when one of the executives said, “We can know our credit union is successful when we hear success stories from our members.”

“I felt the synapses in my brain firing and I thought, 'Of course that's the true measure of success. Success is when a member has a wonderful experience because HFS caringly fills a financial need,'” Krauss said. “Metrics are just measures of how many individuals you help. As our conversation continued, we determined that metrics are important of course, but only as measures of individual success stories.''

The last key question Krauss asked was, “What makes HFS special? Why should someone choose HFS over alternatives?”

The first response Krauss heard was 'We genuinely care about the lives and success of our members.' Then, someone else chimed in, “Our employees are what make HFS special.” That person explained that the employees of HFS are responsible for the member success stories because they give members a level of service and personal attention that shows they genuinely care.

“After all, the employees are on the front lines making sure members experience HFS' mantra, 'where caring counts,'” he said. “I left the meeting with a vision of a website that will focus on success stories of their members on their home page and on all of the pages that feature their products and services, which will highlight a member success story.”

HFS' new site, scheduled to go live in 2017, also will improve tracking who is visiting product pages and capturing consumers' contact information regardless of whether they fill out a loan application.

While content drives the design of a credit union's site, the content should focus on helping members first and selling to them second. Most sites attempt to sell first and most consumers are impervious to the hard sell.

“To go beyond the promotion of 'great rates' and 'amazing service' on your website, you have to go beyond promoting and focusing on yourself,” Lay said. “The focus on your website content must be on helping answer consumer questions, concerns, hopes and dreams.”

He pointed out that many executives in the financial services world are, for the most part, left-brain or analytical people. However, consumers are often driven by emotions (the brain's right side) when making financial decisions that touch every aspect of our lives.

“It is for this reason why it is important to think with your right brain when planning to improve your website's content as you must speak to basic emotional needs,” he explained. “For example, when you talk about rates, you are speaking into the logical left side of the brain. However, when you talk about 'buying a car shouldn't feel frustrating,' you are speaking into the emotional right side of the brain.'”

Lay helped the $274 million DuGood Federal Credit Union in Beaumont, Texas, transform its website to appeal to the emotional goodness of financial well-being that can help members feel positive about credit union banking. More importantly, the site demonstrates how the credit union can help people advance their financial interests.

On DuGood's home page, the copy reads and suggests the member or non-member take action: “Help me get a checking account that feels good,” “Help me buy a car or lower my payments,” “Help me buy a home or lower my payments.”

The landing pages for each product feature a simplified step-by-step process, without a lot of copy to read, that guides members through the entire buying journey.

What also can help credit unions market their products and services is website personalization technology that makes content relevant for members and non-members.

Companies use software that customizes the content on the home page based on products and services the consumer has viewed during previous visits to their websites. Making content relevant to consumers can help drive conversion rates.

A survey of more than 1,000 ecommerce and marketing professionals that use website personalization solutions reported an increase in sales that averaged between 19% to 21%. The survey, titled “The Realities of Online Personalization,” was conducted by the New York-based Econsultancy, a marketing and ecommerce firm, and Monetate, a personalization software provider in Conshohocken, Pa.

Krauss is conducting an A/B test on the website of the $65 million Meridia Community Federal Credit Union in Hamburg, N.Y.

“So far we've seen that personalization increases click-through and conversion rates,” he said.

A personalization solution can also help members find the nearest branch or ATM.

For credit unions with numerous branches and ATMs, the personalization software can help members quickly find the nearest branch or ATM using their mobile phones.

“There are multiple ways that the technology can be used, but ultimately, the big idea is what the name implies, making the content more personal so that it's more relevant and useful for individual users,” Krauss said.

Interest in website chat bot technology is increasing among credit union clients, Krauss observed.

Chat bot is a computer program that simulates human conversations or chat through artificial intelligence.

“Rather than a website just sitting there while people browse it, you can now have the website initiate conversations,” Krauss said. “You can have a chat bot guide someone through the process of getting an auto loan or guide someone through the process of applying for membership. It's kind of humanizing the website a little bit and making the website more engaging and conversational.”

Instant Insights /

Time for a Website Makeover

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