Culture Governs Your Member Experience

Five-star rating from a member.

Smart leaders know that in today’s enormously competitive environment, it takes more than satisfactory customer service to thrive. Although good service is a must, it’s the many different ways that your credit union engages a member, both person-to-person and digitally that makes the difference. With that in mind, the guiding light for the credit union’s vision is about creating a high-quality member experience. The member-experience vision that defines your brand should create a relationship and an emotional connection with the member. The goal is to build loyalty, and to make a member want to stay, conduct additional business and advocate for others to join. Your credit union’s interactions with members should delight them and anticipate their needs. The total member-experience involves your people and your technology. Routine tasks should be frictionless and human interactions should leave people feeling not just well-served, but special. Employees should strive and the systems should be designed to make members feel the credit union is going above and beyond the call of duty.

Although organizations have known for a time that they must compete on “customer experience,” studies and surveys tell how a customer-centric mindset is not fully at work at most companies. Most employees do not have a grasp of the customer-centric vision that management perceives, and often people in management themselves are not clear about it. Without a sound awareness of the organization’s customer-centric vision, it cannot produce the results that will drive loyalty and create apostles to spread the good word about the credit union.