Executive Summary
What separates successful organizations from mediocre ones is their ability to maintain the core offerings and culture that make them unique while adapting to the changing environment around them. No one likes change. But change is necessary for growth.
Credit unions must continue to position themselves for success as the financial services world is disrupted by technology. The payments environment is evolving. Consumers’ demands are diversifying. Digital channels are being embraced. Millennials are becoming the target consumers for many organizations. The order in which these changes are addressed depends on a credit union’s priorities. What are yours?
What is the research about?
At Filene’s Optimizing Channels for Superior Member Service Workshop this past spring, Filene Research Fellow and Harvard Business School Professor Dennis Campbell focused on the importance of service excellence across physical, online, and mobile channels. Being able to deliver quality service is the key to driving exceptional member satisfaction over an extended period of time. This report not only recaps the key themes around service delivery discussed at the workshop, but it also introduces Filene's member experience design tool which allowed credit unions to evaluate what members value most and what it would reliably take to provide them those things.
As of June 29, 2016 the tool is no longer active.
What are the credit union implications?
It’s always tempting to explore new investments or technologies just to keep up with the Joneses. But who says this is necessary? Credit unions should ask themselves the following questions:
- What do my members value most?
- What would it take to reliably give them those things?
- What would we need to give up?
Once you’ve defined and ranked the most important attributes of the member experience, you can map out your credit union’s capacity to deliver on those attributes. Ultimately, this practice will help identify systematic opportunities to optimize the member experience across various channels.
This report is sponsored by Credit Union Central of Canada.