Member Loyalty Group

Recently, I had the great pleasure of visiting the team at Wright-Patt Credit Union in Fairborn, Ohio. We’ve been working with Amanda Minehart, their Service Quality Manager, for the past year to kick-off their Net Promoter Program. Wright-Patt has always been a member-focused, service-driven organization…and they were ready to take it to the next level and integrate member feedback into every part of their credit union.

That's me on the left & Amanda on the right at the Wright-Patt headquarters in Fairborn, OH.

 I’ve been incredibly impressed with the rapid engagement within the front-line management and executive team. The executive and management teams invest time during their regular meetings to discuss the feedback they are receiving from the program, performance levels for various parts of the organization and ways to use this feedback to improve the member experience. And they continue to ask for more and more feedback…it’s absolutely wonderful! So, when the opportunity presented itself…I had to go out and see for myself what these guys were up to.

Amanda arranged for Michelle (our CEO) and I to attend one of these regular manager meetings, which was great. I could tell immediately that each of the managers knows and understands their score, AND…more importantly…what members say they need to do in order to improve that score.

Then, we saw the NPS forum she created on their employee intranet. This is a place for the entire company to see the survey results and have two-way conversations about the feedback. Staff is encouraged to share their ideas on how to improve member service.

The Net Promoter League scoreboard at the Gantt Member Center. This is visible to all employees as they enter their breakroom...a great reminder that "promoter worthy" service is everyone's goal.

One of my favorite parts of the day was going on a tour of several Member Centers  (at Wright-Patt “branches” are called “Member Centers”). Here, we got to see how each Member Center encorporates NPS feedback into their day-to-day operations.

The entire Wright-Patt team recently began the “Net Promoter League” (an NFL-style season, playoffs and Super Bowl NPS competition). Each week one of the 22 Member Centers  “plays” another Member Center. They compete for the highest NPS for that week’s transaction surveys. Rankings are updated on the Partner Net (employee intranet) every day, so each team knows how they’re doing. Team rankings are also announced at regular manager meetings…Amanda announced these during the meeting I attended, and I can tell you that the top spots are highly coveted!

The Member Centers are encouraged to post wins & losses for employees to keep track. One Member Center asks employees to send an email during the week congratulating or encouraging the team to provide great service.

 I think the competition is incredibly smart…not because it’s helping managers and staff keep track of their scores. But, the real key is that, they have created a mechanism for consistent and timely communication around member feedback that is visible to EVERYONE in the organization. Very quickly, the focus in the organization has been placed on members and what they have to say about the credit union’s service levels.

Many companies are measuring NPS, including credit unions, but few have developed systems and processes by which this information is shared on a regular basis. Front-line managers and executives are key in the NPS information sharing process – they’re the ones that control operations and strategy. But, it’s also important to remember that front-line employees need feedback too. Your member’s experience is in their hands, after all.

Thanks for a great visit! And keep up the good work!

As a group of Net Promoter practicioners, we get a lot of questions about how to “do” Net Promoter or how to improve NPS. What are other credit unions and companies doing? Here’s your opportunity to learn from some of the best in the business…

Satmetrix announced a great line-up of NPS webinars this fall. If you’re implementing a Net Promoter program or are thinking about starting one…these are super informative and helpful. Check it out.

Early in my career at Baxter Credit Union, I committed a faux pas during an interaction with one of our partners (vendors others may call them – but most are truly partners at BCU.) Mike Valentine, the CEO, very pointedly called me on it. He could see my obvious unhappy reaction because he said “Feedback is a gift. Please take it as such.” It felt a lot more like a lump of coal than a gift at the time, but over the next few days I thought about his comments and he was absolutely right. Adjusting my approach in similar situations has served me well in the years since. He really did give me a gift by pointing out my “opportunity for improvement.”

I appreciate the time he took to help me. People are unbelievable busy. They have zillions of things vying for their time and energy. Those who invest their time to tell you how you can get better truly are giving you a gift. One of the big surprises in the Net Promoter Score results among Member Loyalty Group credit unions is the huge amount of constructive feedback provided by Promoters. These members love their credit union, rating it a 9 or 10 when asked if they would recommend it to a friend, colleague or family member. However, they know things aren’t perfect. They love their CU warts and all.

While many people focus on comments from Detractors, the volume and richness of the Promoter feedback often outweighs that of Detractors. Just like in your personal life, the people that care about you the most give you the best stuff. Promoters genuinely want to help their CU get better, so they will give very specific instructions on how to do that. This is especially true through the email channel where it is easier for members to provide really detailed advice – much more detailed than you often get from Detractors who aren’t as invested in your success. Just a few examples from Promoters:

“At the Hwy 20 location I absolutely hate leaning over the counter in the great room to do business – too impersonal and no privacy! Perhaps two personal banker cubbies could be created.”

“I would like to be able to make a credit card payment on a future date. It appears that the only way to do this now is through bill pay, which seems to take extra time and there is a lag between the payment date and when the credit union receives my payment.”

Often, the members really seem pained to have to correct you and want to be careful of people’s feelings:

“Make sure everyone knows what the procedure is for purchasing vehicles in Illinois…. I am not complaining though, I am completely satisfied with the process!!”

Their thoughtful observations are intended to help make you better. Multiply these examples by the thousands of responses that are generated annually by a good Net Promoter program and you have some very powerful information. Through careful listening and well-chosen actions a credit union can truly use this insight to mold services to match perfectly to their member needs and create real competitive advantage.

Our mothers always taught us that when someone gives you a gift, you should send them a thank you note. The same applies to our members who give us feedback. The best ways to thank them are to let them know you heard their suggestions and, where possible, do something about it

Several recent articles about President Obama pointed out that every day he gets a purple folder with 10 letters from Americans that are representative of the thousands of messages in the days’ mail. He personally reads the letters and the writers receive a presidential response. Sometimes even a call. He does this to “stay in touch with the people who elected him” and to make sure he doesn’t get stuck in a White House bubble that distances him from the real issues people face. He gets letters from people losing their homes or jobs, letters from parents of soldiers in Iraq, people who vehemently disagree with his bailout of the banks, etc. “We pick messages that are compelling, things people say that, when you read it, you get a chill,” said Mr. Kelleher, the Director of White House Correspondence. “I send him letters that are uncomfortable messages.”

Years ago when I was working at a large credit union, our entire senior team would sit in the Call Center once a year for two hours stints during National Customer Service Week and listen to member calls. It was intended to show appreciate for the reps, but an interesting thing always happened: Management team members would get wildly fired-up about the problems they were hearing from Members on the phone. Managers, often shocked, would say things like: “Did you know that direct deposits didn’t hit until 10 am this week and we bounced member checks?!” or “Did you know we don’t give payment envelopes with the payment coupons on indirect loans?!”

Many of the issues had been languishing on lists of items to review or fix, but when leaders heard the complaint coming directly from the Members, it suddenly seemed criminal that the problems hadn’t been resolved. There would be a big bustle of activity for the next several weeks as everyone raced to correct the things they’d heard the members grumble about. Eventually, the memories of our time in the call center would fade and we would settle back into our senior management bubble. Team conversation would revert back to more high-level, less member-centric topics. ROA, net income, board meetings and strategic planning sessions.

There is an old management saying “You can expect what you inspect.” Because we historically have not had tools that give us a daily feel for the “pulse” of the member, we tend to focus primarily on the things we do have tools to collect information about. Financials, Sales Figures, Delinquency. Many are outcomes – not necessarily drivers – of the business.

With a solid Net Promoter program, managers at all levels of an organization can get daily feedback from member in the members own words. Information that can truly balance the scorecard. What works? What doesn’t? What causes pain? What do they love? The voice of the member is powerful stuff and virtually impossible to ignore, especially when you make it part of your daily focus. It drives quick action to improve the member experience. It makes you better than your competitors.

Until there are formal tools in place in your organization to routinely collect member feedback, reading 10 letters (or listening to 10 calls) a day seems like a decent start. That is 2,600 letters a year. That is a lot of feedback. How many members do you communicate with each day? Do you need a purple folder?

Relax – you won’t feel a thing

There is a relatively new, high-profile dentist in Chicago.   She started her practice not far from my home with a direct marketing campaign that was extremely well done.  Great branding.  An appealing, immediately recognizable name, good graphics and compelling price and service offers.  Something you rarely see from a dentist.  They drove a TON of business with their amazing campaign.  So much in fact that she quickly hired another dentist and opened a second office not far from the first one.

In the short time the practice has been open, it has the second highest numbers of dentist reviews on Yelp – the very popular review site that is widely used here in the windy city.  It also has close to the lowest score in the dental category with gory and frightening comments like:

“I could go on with many other stories, like the time she drilled through my lip then yelled at me and stormed out of the room as blood was running down my chin. (Seriously I couldn’t make this up, I have pictures to prove it)”

“It started to feel like I was in an abusive relationship”

“The cleaning and treatment HURT (I had trouble swallowing the next day from being jabbed with the anesthesia needle), the visit was expensive even with insurance, and I was billed for a procedure which I had declined.”

There are many more just like these.  Even though there are a few good comments sprinkled in, you would have to be a brave soul to venture into that office.  In the past, they could have gone for a long time and possibly improved their dentistry skills before word got around about them.  Not today.

Chicago is a big small town and I heard through the local grapevine that the dentist may have been asking around to see if it was possible to get the negative postings removed from the Web.  Not going to happen.  Even if it were possible, it is far too late for that.  Their reputation is toast.  The huge start-up investment they made and the initial excitement it generated are lost forever.  Their only hope is to change their name, start fresh in another city and pray no one discovers their history.

You Have a New Boss

The sado-dentist is an extreme example of a business that will likely die a hasty death at the hands of its customers, but this type of thing is happening every day.  At the other end of the spectrum, Tom’s Shoes, a company that gives away a free pair of shoes to the poor for each pair it sells, has grown like crazy exclusively through the good viral customer word-of-mouth.  Companies no longer control most of the public information and conversation about their products and services.  It is now in the hands of the masses – they are your new bosses. Organizations that will be successful in the future understand that.  It is the goal of this blog to provide information, insight and resources to help credit unions continues to get good reviews from their bosses.