MADISON, Wis. — CUNA is working to bridge the gap between member use of credit union products and member loyalty.
"We've found over the years that credit unions that have loyal members as opposed to satisfied members are more successful with everything they do," said CUNA Sales Culture Development Director Angela Prestil. "There is a huge difference in the types of product penetration when you have a truly loyal member. It is not about getting rid of nonprofitable members, since we know that a small percentage, about 8% of members, generate 127% of the credit union profit. Our goal is to see how we can increase the percentage of loyal members."
She added that retaining 5% of the most profitable members can boost profits by 100% and moving just 5% of existing members from "satisfied" to "loyal" can increase income by 20% to 75%.
With that in mind, since taking over the Creating Member Loyalty organizational training program from CUNA Mutual Group last November, CUNA has been busy incorporating its own training expertise and specialties to make it easier for credit unions to access the program.
The CML program provides training and implementation support to help credit unions develop their member service and sales culture and enhance the leadership and coaching capabilities of their staff.
"It was important to us to continue this program because our whole reason for existence is to help people realize their personal and professional potential," said Prestil. "So we really looked at some of the things CUNA does well, like our Webinars and some of our other online specialties like online registrations for training or starting a listserv for trainers, and rolled them into the program for easier access."
CUNA is looking to find ways to tie a Creating Member Loyalty training conference into its popular Experience Learning Live conference exclusively for credit union trainers in October, she added.
Prestil said the test of member loyalty boils down to meeting three basic criteria: they consider the credit union their primary financial institution, they'd recommend their credit union to friends and family, and they contact it for future services.
"Anyone that doesn't respond 'yes, definitely' to any of those is not a truly loyal member," said Prestil. "So what we do with this program is make sure the staff has the skills and behaviors that will exceed member needs and expectations. So rather than just cashing a check they take notice of where that check is drawn, ask high-impact questions to anticipate their members' needs so the goal is not about signing them up for the promotion of the week or month but taking the time to learn more about the member to build a relationship."
She said sometimes there is a CEO disconnect in what they think is happening on the front lines at branches or call centers and what is actually happening. Beyond teaching employees what types of questions they should ask to determine the financial needs of that member, the front-line supervisor should also know how to coach staffers and that coaching should continue all the way up to the senior management level on a regular basis.
"Credit unions that have made the greatest strides are the ones that have the coaching piece to a science as far as accountability," said Prestil. "We've seen credit unions in the past have a training event that is highly entertaining or a big splashy kickoff and hours with the management team chuckling then just go back to what they were doing. You won't see an impact on members or employees if you do it that way."
–mdigiovanni@cutimes.com
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