How credit unions can improve member experience

Sara Yonker

March 29, 2023

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Understanding your members will help you serve them better. The more you know, the better. But the demographic and financial information about them is only part of the picture.

Understanding their feelings about your brand, support center, and services can be difficult to unearth.

How do credit unions measure and track member experience?

Measuring and tracking credit union member experience is paramount to success. It's a fundamental element of a member-centric approach that sets credit unions apart from other financial institutions. To achieve this, credit unions use a variety of tools and methods.

Strategies credit unions use to measure members’ experiences include:

Statistics about accounts and usage
Integrated feedback scoring, such as Net Promoter Scores (NPS) or Customer Satisfaction Scores (CSAT)
Surveys
Internal team anecdotes from member interactions on customer care team
Conversation intelligence platforms

Do surveys work to measure credit union member satisfaction?

Credit unions want to provide a frictionless experience for its members, provide personalized service, and help members improve their financial situations. How do credit unions know if they're meeting consumer demands?

Recently, we asked the credit union member experience leaders who watched our expert panel on member experiences.

More than 80% of credit union member experience leaders said they rely on surveys to measure member experience and satisfaction, according to our study.

The problem: members get tired of answering how they’re feeling at every turn of events. Low response rates can skew results, a problem not unique to the banking and credit union industry. Responses tend to only capture outliers - those incredibly pleased or disgruntled - instead of measuring the quality of the member experience overall.

This misses the biggest piece of your membership - and distorts your ‘big picture’ view.

“It’s polarizing. Either you get the person with the really really good experience or the person with the bad experience. You never get the forgotten middle, which is actually the most important and the largest group of your membership base,” said Aaron Mickelson, Director of Digital Experience at Twinstar Credit Union.

Instead of surveying your members about each interaction, you can use AI to measure critical components of each conversation without burdening them with another survey. This process uses information you already have, so you're not burdening your members with additional requests.

How to use AI to measure member experience

One of the most effective methods to measure member experience involves implementing an AI-powered conversation intelligence platform such as Tethr. Unlike some speech analytics solutions that only transcribe conversations, conversation intelligence solutions with artificial intelligence offer customizable solutions that help to track and measure valuable member experience metrics.

With conversation intelligence platforms, credit unions can measure member experience in real-time by analyzing 100% of customer interactions, not just those who respond to surveys. This allows credit unions to gain a more comprehensive understanding of member sentiment, preferences, and pain points, which can inform targeted improvements to service and offerings.

What sets Tethr apart is that it does this automatically, without requiring any additional effort or time commitment from members. This makes it easier for credit unions to gather valuable data on member experience without being intrusive or disruptive.

With Tethr, credit unions can analyze conversations across multiple channels, including phone, email, chat, and social media, to gain a complete picture of member sentiment. By leveraging the power of AI, credit unions can identify trends and patterns in member feedback, enabling them to take action quickly and effectively to improve the member experience.

Conversation intelligence platforms can also streamline workflows by automating quality assurance processes, automatically capture customer effort scores, and give you insights into agent training opportunities, areas of friction in specific areas such as a mortgage process or loan application.

Factors that contribute to member loyalty

Once you're able to measure your member experience, you can set goals to improve customer loyalty. What are the drivers of loyalty?

Service quality: Compared to large commercial banks and community banks, credit unions are expected to have higher levels of personalized, customer service. Those that provide high-quality service are more likely to retain their members. This includes agents who are responsive to customer needs, resolve issues quickly and efficiently, and being friendly and helpful.
Product quality: Credit unions need to stay competitive in its banking services. Those that offer high-quality products are more likely to retain their customers or expand services to more areas. Consumers measure product quality by considering if a credit union provides competitive interest rates, offers a variety of products and services, and is easy to do business with.
Value for money: Credit unions that offer good value for money are more likely to retain their customers. This includes factors such as offering low fees, providing free services, and being transparent about their fees and charges.
Trust: Credit unions that are trustworthy are more likely to retain their customers. This includes factors such as being honest and transparent, keeping customer data safe, and being fair in their dealings with members.
Convenience: Credit unions that are convenient to do business with are more likely to retain their customers. This includes factors such as having branches in convenient locations, offering online banking, and being open late and on weekends.
Reputation: Credit unions that have a good reputation are more likely to retain their customers. This includes factors such as being well-known in the community, being involved in local charities, and being responsive to member feedback.