MERRIFIELD, Va. — Navy Federal Credit Union is now using sophisticated tech tools to get detailed feedback regarding individual members–about 150,000 so far this year.

Findings from the predictive analytics and data mining software from SPSS Inc. have helped the world's largest credit union decide to, among other things, offer unlimited free online bill pay, boost staffing at its call centers and embark on an aggressive brick-and-mortar expansion.

In fact, the SPSS software is now “permeating every strategic unit in our credit union,” said Alan Payne, manager of member research and analysis planning at $35 billion Navy Federal.

Payne said four people in his group now use the software on a daily basis, along with another 20 to 25 people on a daily or regular basis around the big CU.

Payne's team produces surveys that are then mailed to members, 36 so far this year alone. That includes a monthly satisfaction study that has produced almost 47,000 responses in one data set alone, looking at about 1,000 variables.

“What's beautiful about this software is that you are able to do complex sampling, to take different samples from different respondents around the world, and we can easily exclude the same respondents from being surveyed for two years, so you don't ask the same people the same questions,” Payne said.

“For example, we were able to learn that improving response time on the telephone and increasing the number of branches were both keys to improving member satisfaction,” he said. “We were able to go to our management and then eventually our board of directors and show them how this would help, with specific information on how things like living 10 or 20 or 30 miles from the nearest branch changes responses.”

As a result, Payne said, the 3.1 million-member Navy Federal has added 34 branches in the past year, giving it 151 around the globe, with plans to add another 21 this year.

Another example was the decision to change the online bill pay policy from a system that required members to use it three or more times to get the service for free to unlimited free bill pay.

“The uptake on that was substantial,” Payne said.

Other uses Navy Federal has found for the software include portfolio and valuation analysis in the lending department and employee surveys by human resources specialists.

Navy Federal is one of about 60 credit unions on the SPSS client list, said Richard Hren, the Chicago-based company's director of product marketing.

He said SPSS has about 250,000 customers “and we do a lot of talking to them. We have an active customer advisory board, and we fold much of that into the next release cycle. It's an ongoing development of the software.”

Payne said the software is able to handle everything from simple correlations to complex algorithm relationships and can be used by “an analyst with one year experience just as easily as someone with 20 years of experience. That allows us to get the maximum return out of our investment in these tools.”

The ability to show statistically significant “lifts in member satisfaction” after bolstering the call center and branch operations also has proven powerful in establishing the software's worth, Payne says.

Return on investment can be hard to show empirically, but Payne said, “in this case it's very high and very powerful. We can show we're using the right methodologies to track member satisfaction and initiatives and to continually improve service.”

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