LAS VEGAS-The new membership numbers credit unions are seeing are great, but one person is cautioning that what happens next is even more important.
"What credit unions need is to improve their products per new member in the first 90 days of memberships," said Michael Neill, president of Atlanta-based Michael Neill & Associates. "Credit unions look at services per household and profitability per member, but most are getting worse one member at a time because they are not doing a good job of onboarding new members."
CUs can overcome this trend, Neill continued, but having firm goals on new products. He said branch managers should be made accountable for the number of new products per member at their branches. Regular reporting to let the managers know how well they are doing against the goals will keep the importance of increasing products per member front of mind, he noted.
"Metrics are needed for success. Credit unions need to track these numbers. Managers should have three-month goals, and if they are behind after one month or two months, then they will know they have to improve," he said.
Cross-Selling/Cross-Training
Being a "trusted financial advisor" for a credit union's members is "easy to say but hard to do," Neill assessed. He said CUs should start with more and deeper training to overcome having to pass members around the room.
"The employee can't say, 'That's a great question, let me take you over here.' What the employee must say is, 'That's a great question, let me answer it for you.'"
Technology is important, but is not a panacea. Neill reminded CUs they will not be able to outdo the technological offerings of big banks simply because of the resources those banks have at their disposal.
CUs enjoy a good relationship with their members, but they tend to score low in product knowledge and professionalism, Neill said.
"Credit unions have to go beyond checking and savings accounts, and their employees have to know what to offer to members," he advised. "At new account opening is when 70% of cross-selling occurs, but the problem is many credit union employees have been trained in silos. They do not have the ability or the incentive to offer a broad range of products across product lines."
