LAS VEGAS -
Government Employees Credit Union (GECU), El Paso, Texas, sent a film crew into the homes of six credit union members to discuss money and how it moves into and out of their lives. GECU was one of seven credit unions participating in a project sponsored by the Filene Research Institute that was aimed at driving greater innovation in product and service development.
"We went into the members' homes and talked about money; we did not talk about their credit union," explained Stephanie Norvaisas, director of research with Design Concepts, a Madison, Wis.-based product development firm.
Quoting Marcel Proust's observation that "The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands, but in seeing with new eyes," all of the credit unions involved allowed Design Concepts to handle the interviews without any interruptions. Members talked about all aspects of their financial situation, emptying out purses and wallets of credit and debit cards as they shared some very intimate details of their finances.
"We were searching for the Blue Ocean," said Musette Bracher, VP-marketing with GECU, referring to the popular book. "This year we are celebrating our 75th anniversary, and things are good. But we wanted to know what we needed to do to be around for another 75 years."
Bracher added that if there was one overarching lesson from the member interactions it was that "people do not have an overall sense of their financial picture."
During CUNA's America's Credit Union Conference here attendees were permitted to watch snippets from the video and saw members who ranged from having no debt and paying for everything in cash to members deeply in debt and unsure how they would ever get out.
Norvaisas said the interviews took place in the members' homes because that is the place people are most comfortable and "would tell us all kinds of things." Seeking to not influence what the members had to say, when Bracher participated in the filming she did not identify herself as being with GECU. "Sometimes I had to just listen and bite my tongue when it came to some of the things people said and felt about finance," Bracher said.
In analyzing the findings at the seven credit unions, Stephanie Norvaisas said the goal was to identify a critical mass and ways to make a difference in the lives of members and how they feel about their credit union.
One lesson that challenges some credit union assumptions, said Julie Norvaisas, is that "People behave in ways that are repeated and are not the result of age and income but is based on where they are in their life stage."
Design Concepts and the Filene project segmented members six ways: Learning/Growing, Demanding/Complex, Security, Control Seeker, Challenged, and Status Quo. What was also clear, said Stephanie Norvaisas, was that consumers often "abandon rationality" when it comes to their finances. "A lot of people make decisions that do not make economic sense," she observed. "In a lot of ways people do not want to know the truth. They just hope it works out. They feel it's too much work to get the knowledge they need."
GECU's Bracher said she was initially concerned that just six members out of the CU's 267,000 members were being interviewed. "But what is so cool is that there are similar dysfunctions across the country about money," she said.
The three key takeaways from the research for GECU, according to Bracher, are: enhance membership benefits; become trusted financial education source; teach members to save.
