FORT WORTH, Texas -
They better be, because it is the company's intention to show off the facility and the employees' customer service prowess to its credit union clients as often as possible, having incorporated a special conference room that looks out on the operation just for that purpose.
The room is equipped with a variety of technology that allows visitors to watch and listen in on a call center representative as the rep handles customer service calls live. The reps won't necessarily know when or if they're being featured in the customer conference room, so they have undergone extensive training to ensure that they are always ready for that close-up.
But visiting clients won't be relegated to the high-tech conference room. They'll be given special badges that identify them as customers and then allowed to tour the facility entirely on their own.
"We want to be able to turn our customers over to our staff," said CUNA Mutual VP-Customer Operations Joe Taricani. "As they move through the facility, our staff will see their badges and will be able to reach out to them, explain what it is they're doing and help move them along through the facility."
The same detail that has gone into the training of the staff and in the technology used in the client conference room has also gone into the technology and design of the rest of the facility, as well, boasting a special room just for expectant mothers, for example, as well as additional women's restrooms.
But CUNA Mutual isn't merely catering to its female personnel, all employees will be able to enjoy "Main Street," which includes an Internet bar and quiet rooms where people can curl up with a book or listen to music on their iPods, for example.
The first 140 employees, who had been working out of a temporary space not far from the new building, moved in April 6 and 7, with another 250 employees from the LoanLink Center slated to join them in June.
Hours before the grand opening, three employees were selected to go to the new facility and take the first official customer service calls at the new digs.
"We took our first live calls at 9:46 a.m. [April 5]," CUNA Mutual SVP-Customer Operations Rick Roy related. "One was a member inquiry on coverage on collateral protection. One was a credit union claim, and one was a credit union looking for a report," Taricani added, noting that the callers didn't know they were making history, they just knew they were getting their questions answered.
When CUNA Mutual first embarked on creating this center, the plan called for buying an existing facility, not building from scratch. "About 365 days ago, we weren't sure where we were going to go, and we weren't planning to build," Roy noted.
Though the location CUNA Mutual chose boasts a number of plusses, not the least of which is its proximity to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and to three major highways, the real draw, Roy and Taricani said, was the caliber of the work force to be found in the area.
"One of the other cities we looked in, for example, was Phoenix," Taricani explained. "But Phoenix is saturated with call centers and the turnover is 50%-plus."
On exploring the Dallas-Fort Worth area, CUNA Mutual found it was rich in qualified workers-the challenge was attracting them.
"Coming from Wisconsin, where we are a well-known, major employer to an area where didn't have a lot of name recognition, then you add that our first interviews were held in an empty office space we rented with just some card tables...we were really asking these people to take a leap of faith," Taricani related.
CUNA Mutual took a leap of faith of its own in deciding to build from scratch-and is extending that leap by putting its operations on full display for its customers, but it's a move the company believes will have a big pay-off.
"Every day in this building we are ready for the customer," Taricani offered. "What this building looks like two years from now will reflect on our management. We are giving our employees freedoms they've never had before but a strict code of conduct. The message is that we are always ready for a customer, and they've got it."
It's all part of the "transformation" that CEO Jeff Post launched about a year and a half ago, during which time CUNA Mutual has sought feedback from credit unions about what they need and want from CMG. "We heard a lot about what we were doing well and what we weren't," Roy observed. "Our customers are already really seeing and feeling the difference. They're asking us, 'how did you do that?'"
CMG hopes to host two to three client visits a week at the news facility. "When you come here and you see 800 people all pointed toward you as a customer, you really feel it," Taricani said.
