TAMPA, Fla. — Credit unions have put increasing emphasis on using member feedback to improve service levels using what are commonly known as "Voice of the Customer" (VOC) programs, also known as "Voice of the Member."
At the CUNA Mutual-sponsored "Battle for the American Consumer: A Symposium on Member Centricity" last week, the sponsor company offered its own insights into what makes for an effective and productive VOC program. "The answers to service excellence are often hiding in plain sight, " said Jennifer Norr, CUNA's director of business and planning in retirement plan services.
Why should a credit union have a VOC program? According to Norr, it's only a "VOC program that can tell you if your service is consistently excellent across all products and channels in a rapidly changing delivery model." That VOIC program (CUNA Mutual uses "Customer" because of its client base) is data from customers that is unbiased and quantifiable, said. Norr.
According to Norr, the three key steps to strong VOC program are:
- Gather the Data. "Gather input directly from your member and measure it from your member's perspective. Data gathering can include phone surveys, websites, usability studies, loan experience surveys, ethnography, relationship surveys, loyalty studies and secret shoppers."
- Analyze that Data. "Understand the member experience and determine a focus area. Monitor trends." CUNA Mutual, for instance, aligns itself around a "Loyalty Index" (overall satisfaction, likelihood to recommend, likelihood to repurchase). The company also uses "Customer Effort," which seeks to answer "how much effort did you personally put forth to have your request handled"; and "First Contact Resolution" (percent of contacts where the customer issue is resolved on the first contact). "Make sure the customer tells you it was resolved," urged Norr.
- Act on Data. "Improve customer-facing processes and engage your employees."
Norr also offered a list of "Do's and Don'ts" for an effective VOC program.
- Do: Get buy in from organization; collect data from your members; be consistent repeatable and centralized; focus on trends (holistic view) and entire member experience ("Don't just take employees' word for it"); collect data on loyalty, reasons for satisfaction, etc; make it simple and transparent, and "collect data you can act on."
- Don't: Go it alone, rely on employees' perspectives; vary by site/department/time, etc.; focus on only one channel, part of process, etc.; ask only if members are satisfied; make it so complicated you can't maintain it or explain to members, or ask about something you won't change.
Dorothy Leaderer, director of customer operations at CUNA Mutual's Ft. Worth, Texas call center, said CUNA Mutual itself has used VOC to improve its service to both CU member and credit unions themselves. "We found the key is communication. We sought to educate the member on the process, proactively reviewed and improved forms, which were not in format people understood, and we reduced its turnaround time by cutting 12 forms to four," said Leaderer.
Another key has been training around demonstrating empathy. "We addressed the pain," said Leaderer. "Callers wanted to know 'What's going to happen here?' "
She said the company listened and trained employees on what empathy sounds like. "Fifty percent of experience comes from emotions, so we had to get employees engaged. It's not enough to follow the process, you really need to make that connection. You are there to help them. That's why we don't use scripts."
Leaderer said CUNA Mutual had its call center employees listen in groups to their own call and those of others. "We want to make them feel inspired. What is routine needs to become less routine to help people get past the 'routine-ness' of dealing with a high volume of calls in a fast-paced environment. We want people to be focused on truly helping someone, not how quickly can I get through the call."
Norr pointed to findings that show account reps with lower overall satisfaction scores are more likely to score lower on specific job duties. "The key job duties are accessibility, problem-solving and timelines," said Norr. "It's not about communication, accuracy or even regulations.
"We talk about service excellence, but what really matters is being easy to do business with," continued Norr. "Delighting a customer is kind of hard and only helpful if you take are of the basics."
