SACRAMENTO, Calif. – It's a simple idea, but more difficult thanit sounds. In order to improve the branch experience for yourmembers, change your operational processes first, then buildsupporting technology around it. SAFE Credit Union did just that,and through its new Better Branches CUSO, the $1.2-billioninstitution is marketing the idea to its peers. Better Branches isactually a collaborative effort between SAFE, operational guru RickPoulton, and software development company Performance SystemsInternational (PSI). The venture began back in 2002, when RichardHealy, SAFE's Vice President of Operations, read an article in theWall Street Journal, which described the new accounts process fromthe account holder's perspective. It revealed that account holdersoften perceive standard operational practice as poor service. “Itprompted us to think about our own new accounts process from themembers' standpoint,” Healy said. Changing operational processes isone tall order for a community-based credit union with 14 branchesserving 113,000 members. SAFE decided to call in SanFrancisco-based Poulton, known for his work in helping businessesre-engineer their operational processes. Poulton observed that thecredit union had a very manual and labor-intensive new accountsprocess, Healy said. For example, member service representativeswere required to manually enter personal information several timesin SAFE's Summit core system. And the bottom line, Healy said, wasthat members were waiting an average of eight to 10 minutes inSAFE's branches before being served, and new members required 45minutes to open an account. SAFE prioritized Poulton'srecommendations and first developed a queue system for memberswaiting for teller service. The electronic sign-in system issimilar to call center technology and not only keeps track of whoshould be served next, but allows management to observe wait timesfrom the credit union's headquarters facility. “Now, our averagewait time is only about two minutes,” Healy said. “Just bymonitoring it, we were able to reduce wait time significantly.”Meanwhile, PSI was developing a Web-based new accounts softwareprogram that would allow credit unions to streamline the Summitsystem process. PSI President Grant Parry was Summit's VicePresident of Technology for six years. Poulton contacted PSI to seeif the company could provide software for SAFE, “and it becamequickly apparent there were lots of convergences in what we wereboth doing,” Parry said. The team set out to develop software toassist in Poulton's four steps of the new accounts process:identify, consult, fulfill and follow up. During the identify step,members are screened for membership qualification. Based onPoulton's idea to make use of lobby wait time, PSI developedsoftware that gathers the member's information from an ATM card orCalifornia driver's license, and runs automated background checkswith bureaus such as Equifax and Chex Systems. Once the backgroundchecks are complete, the potential member is assigned a green,yellow or red code based on a SAFE's loss prevention tolerancematrix. “It's a quick indicator to the MSR if there are any issueswe need to pay attention to,” Healy said, “plus, we have somethingready for the member when they sit down with the MSR.” Uponapproval, the consultation process begins. SAFE wanted to provideits members with a true consultative selling experience, whichwasn't bogged down with data entry, Parry said. To achieve this,PSI developed a Web-based product catalog, which the member viewson screen along with the representative. Members are given thechoice of whether or not they are interested products and servicesimmediately, at a later date, or not at all. Each decision istransferred to the member's shopping cart, which works much like anInternet shopping site. Once the catalog has been reviewed, the newaccount moves into the fulfillment stage. Based primarily on memberinformation gathered from the initial swiping of the ID card, andthe member's choices of products and services, the record iscreated automatically on Summit, including all sub accounts, loans,overdraft commands, flags and memos. SAFE reps can also follow upon new members by acting upon ticklers created during theconsultation process. Thanks to the consultation and follow upprocesses, SAFE has increased its products per member from 1.97 to2.35 since the first roll out one year ago, Healy said. SAFE'sproducts per member figures only include deposit and loan accounts,allowing the institution to compare against peers on 5300 reports.The credit union will implement a consultative enhancement thismonth, which shows the member how much he or she would save bytransferring outside loans to SAFE. Although Better Branches wasdeveloped to assist Summit clients, the CUSO has also developed aSymitar interface. With a six-figure price tag, the software isgeared toward mid- to large-sized credit unions with high branchvolume. -

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