LA HABRA, Calif. - Credit union websites are awakening from years of dreamless sleep, and Credit Union Journal set out in 2008 to chronicle their renaissance.
In the second of a series of articles this year that examines how credit union websites are evolving, American First Credit Union said it is steering clear of the stampede toward trendy Web2.0 and personal money management.
Instead, the website for the $690-million credit union “leads with what we’re good at,” said Brian Thompson, VP-administration.
If you look at the credit union’s homepage, it would seem that American First has a penchant for real estate lending. On top of a huge graphic link featuring a multi-million dollar home, there are navigation buttons and a “rates” table that occupy one-third of the space on the front page.
“We wanted to attract the real estate market and compete with rates and terms,” Thompson said. “We can change our posted rates as the marketplace changes, two or three times a day.”
As a result, the number of online mortgage applications has increased by about 20% since August 2005, when the new AmerFirst.org went up, said Thompson. Web strategy for the new site was provided by Extractable of Foster City, Calif., which counts a dozen CUs among its client base.
Visits to the homepage have doubled in the past year, and the average time a member spends at the site has increased to 23 minutes per session from 10 minutes in 2005, Thompson added.
The new AmerFirst.org has to prove itself against five brick-and-mortar brothers and sisters, “within our geographic marketplace,” Thompson continued. “The challenge is that most of our members are located 50 miles from nowhere all across the nation.”
In fact, the web and call center serve 95% of the membership, he said.
“We think of the website as a branch, and we provide back-office support and profitability analysis for it,” Thompson said.
“It’s tough for credit unions to focus on monitoring the performance of their websites,” suggested Craig McLaughlin, CEO of Extractable. “But prices for analytics have come down. Google even offers its platform for free.”
According to profitability data provided by DMA of Portland, Ore., the American First site measures up well to physical branches.
Online members represent a cross-sell ratio of 4.46 products per member–that compared to only 2.75 per branch member, Thompson explained.
That’s because AmerFirst.org delivers a clear message to its online members, but also because it delivers that message frequently, said Thompson.
“We’re in front of our web members more often than traditional marketing mailers with email and Web marketing,” he said. “The delivery is more timely, and we get materials out to them at least once or twice a month, versus the branch member who gets that once-a-month statement stuffer.”
The site also unifies the credit union’s communication channels with one banner box on every page that shows the member three ways to get in touch.
“We wanted to facilitate member communication with us, so we centralized live chat, the call center and email,” said Thompson. “Now we can offer service-level agreements, such as the member gets a chat response within five seconds and an email answer within one hour.”
Both chat and e-mail sessions have doubled since the three channels were tied together, he said.
The “most exciting new feature” at the site is remote deposit for members, which was launched in December, said Thompson. “We got a quick lift off of that, with 500 members using it in just three months.”
Members get a “polished” experience at American First’s site, suggested McLaughlin.
“That interactive customer experience is the area in need of greatest improvement for credit unions,” he said. CUs are frequently asking Extractable to help with search-engine optimization and education centers, said McLaughlin.
Too many credit union websites have “too much clutter, too much clicking” and try to link to all their services from the front page, added Thompson.
In the early years of AmerFirst.org, the only interaction online was between two “noodlehead” cartoons on the front page, Thompson said. “It was really embarrassing, but members didn’t expect much more than brochure-ware back in 1995.”
MORE
Read more about virtualization at cujournal.com and search the following bolded terms in the archive:
Web2B: Next Gen. Of Online Branch Is Slowly Evolving At LAFireCU.org
How One CU Incented Members To Use E-Bill Pay
CU Uses Eye Tracking Studies To Create More User-Friendly Website
For info on this story:
* www.amerfirst.org
* www.dmacorporation.com
* www.extractable.com
