Loyalty is a measure of the strength of the relationship between an organization and its members/customer. Strong loyalty results in some observable behaviors. People continue doing business with you and don't defect to alternative providers. They purchase additional products or services. They say good things about you in the marketplace. They recommend you to other people. They give you productive feedback on improving your service or product offerings.

These are behaviors that have very tangible, long-term implications for financial results. This isn't just fuzzy, feel-good stuff. Credit unions and other organizations have identified a clear, positive correlation between loyalty and key measures, including profitability, retention and product usage.

Credit unions show very respectable results in the loyalty arena. When loyalty is measured using the Net Promoter Score, credit unions, which average about 56%, outpace the 11% national bank average by a large margin. However, credit unions scores have been relatively flat over past couple of years. When compared to the top five NPS organizations including USAA, Amazon, Apple, Costco and Google, the credit union industry's average lags by about 20 percentage points.