How Vantage West Navigated Two MX Challenges

The credit union mission is people helping people, and that’s always been a focus at Vantage West Credit Union headquartered in Tucson, AZ.

Vantage West partnered with Member Loyalty Group in 2017 as part of their ongoing commitment to the member experience. The program found its footing, and garnered increased enthusiasm from senior management in the process. This executive engagement has been a driving force throughout the organization, inspiring others to jump on board.

Two Major Challenges
Digital conversion
At the helm of managing MX at Vantage West is Josh Widmer. As with any credit union, changes happen, challenging the status quo of the member experience. One such change was a digital platform conversion (we can hear the sympathetic groans now). To prepare for what may lie ahead, Josh and his team met with the MLG team multiple times for guidance on common challenges faced by members during and post conversion, as well as the possible impact of these changes on their member experience metrics after conversion.

The results? Relationship scores dipped briefly for a short time, but they were prepared for this based on their discussions with the MLG team. The conversion ultimately resulted in higher digital and relationship scores. But it wasn’t all smooth sailing. Several months after the conversion, a two-phased change was made to the digital banking login requirements. The first phase caused significantly more frustration than the initial conversion itself. This resulted in Vantage West’s lowest-ever relationship NPS in Q4 of 2019. Nowhere to go but up!

The team reviewed the feedback leading to this downturn, and made adjustments for the second phase of the change. This largely focused on increased member communications ahead of the change, and taking additional steps to make sure everyone working in the contact center was well informed and empowered to help members. With these strategies in place, the second phase changes resulted in much less member frustration.

Branch service
In 2020, the MX team noticed scores trending in the wrong direction for some of the highest-volume and most impactful branches of the credit union. The team met with senior branch leaders to take action. The first step was digging into member feedback. They found that the feedback themes centered around promptness of service, long lines in drive-thrus, and specific concerns in regard to pandemic handling.
The MX team spoke with high-performing branches to see where the differences and opportunities were. Action plans were tailored to each branch, based on member comments and best practices from higher-scoring locations.

After putting improvement plans in place, the branch NPS rapidly improved and they’ve been at or above the 75th percentile in the MLG NPS Benchmarks now for the last 4 quarters straight.

Wins are infectious
These situations created a renewed focus on NPS and the member experience for Vantage West. Engagement continues to grow across the organization and it shows – Q3 2022 NPS scores for Digital Banking and Contact Center hit new highs. Further, Overall Relationship NPS also reached its highest point ever in Q3. With the positive momentum in scores to date, Vantage West is on track to meet their 2025 NPS goal 3 years early. A testament to what credit unions can accomplish when they focus on building their best member experience.