VIENNA, Va.-Members are less concerned about products and services and more interested in easy and free access to the credit union.
That's just one lesson learned from analytics software at Navy FCU here, as the CU makes a heightened, six-year effort to engage members, according to Alan Payne, manager, member research and development.
"About three years ago, we identified that the area driving member satisfaction was our access points and channels more than our products and services," Payne said. In response, the $41-billion CU has built about 80 branches in three years and increased investments in its website, call center and social media, he continued.
Analytics software from IBM SPSS helps Navy Federal objectively identify the needs of its 3.4-million members-needs that management might presume but wouldn't be able to confidently confirm, added Colin Shearer, SVP-strategic analytics for Chicago-based SPSS, an IBM company.
"The software moves across all areas of the credit union to assist in evidence-based decision making," Shearer said. "It provides current information and may discover subtle combinations of information that management may not have thought of. Navy Federal can take SPSS anywhere in the organization to help make better decisions and drive better outcomes."
The discovery that access points and channels were most important to members started with the CU's monthly surveys, to which an average of about 1,500 members respond. Surveys gauge satisfaction related to lending, savings and checking, investments and insurance. The survey data are manually entered into a data set and then analyzed by IBM SPSS Text Analytics for Surveys.
An Interesting Finding
IBM SPSS Statistics and Modeler allow Navy FCU to view the data by demographics and to identify patterns and trends in member satisfaction. Often, attitudinal data from surveys are considered together with qualitative data from interviews and focus groups, as well as quantitative demographic and transactional data.
A "most interesting" recent finding is that members think their finances are "safe and sound" in the CU's hands despite the weak economy, Payne said. And it didn't take long to determine these findings: analyzing the survey, verifying the scores and disseminating the results among management took about 15 minutes, he said.
"The survey reaffirmed that what management is doing is great as new members join and are looking for a place to put their deposits or take out mortgages," Payne said.
Navy FCU learned that free ATMs would be a "big home run" with members, Payne continued. The CU has expanded its free ATM network and added ATM fee reimbursement across several new checking account products.
Navy Federal declined to provide metrics demonstrating the impact of expanded access or free ATMs on member satisfaction. "The figures and values that we have are internal figures and would not necessarily translate outside of our system," said Payne. He added Navy FCU scored significantly higher than the banking giants and other CUs in last year's American Customer Satisfaction Index research.
SPSS could be used by any CU, Payne said. "Six years ago, we had a single person doing six surveys a year with 10,000 members. Start small with one license and grow. The benefits are profound." Navy FCU completed analysis of 67 surveys in 2009 that touches the HR, lending, savings, branch operations and membership business units, he said.
IBM SPSS has delivered more than 1,500% annual ROI to NFCU by allowing it to avoid hiring staff to deliver the same analysis, a study by Boston-based Nucleus Research found.
