Do we make a difference in the lives of our members? 80% of our members would say no, FORUM really makes no significant difference in their lives. Why do I say that? Just giving good rates or good service is really not a loyalty building event. It is just doing what is expected. A couple of years ago, I read the "Fred Factor", the story of the mailman who made a difference to the people on his postal route by the way he delivered the mail.
How can we get the "Fred Factor" in credit unions? It might start with making a difference to the employees of the the credit union. Yesterday we held our "Day of Celebration" (On President's Day when we are closed), a time when all the 350 employees of the credit union get together to celebrate the past year. Awards are given, words of praise are spoken and a speaker is brought in to deliver a message. I started thinking last night, did yesterday make a difference to our employees? I don't know if it did or not but we are trying to make a difference. I am not sure we try every day, with every transaction, through every delivery channel to make a difference or to be different for members. That is where I think FORUM and credit unions in general can make a difference...trying may be enough to seperate us from other financial institutions. Going back to CU roots, credit unions did make a difference in peoples' lives. I am not saying we have to be small, ran by 3 people shops. What we have to do is find ways to make a difference to a diverse group of individuals based on today and tomorrow not yesterday.
One of my favorite says is the definition of insantiy is trying the samething over and over and expecting a different result each time. How insane are most credit unions? They continue to compete on price and tout they have better service. The end results are the chillingly low membership growth numbers, less than attractive ROAs and an even tighter NIM. Didn't work in 2007, 2006, 2005...what's the plan for 2008? Market that our service is the best, offer a fabulously low rate to recaputure auto loans and offer market leading CD rates. (Exactly what we did on 2005 - 2007) but this year we will make it up in volume and the additional services we will cross sell to these members.
Credit Unions, lets be bolder. How about trying to be the Nordstrums, or the Southwest or the Amazon.com of the financial services industry? Make a difference to the members in how they interact with their financial institution...do field research like Intuit does with its TurboTax software...and give your employees the power to really be different.
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