LANSING, Mich.-Case Credit Union has spent the last two years developing what it believes are innovative, technology driven initiatives that will help it to better capture the all-important younger member demographic.
"Our technological offerings have increased greatly under the leadership of our CEO, Jeffrey Benson," said Case's Director of Information Systems and Security, Chad Rolston. "He really likes to be on the cutting edge of technology and that just makes my job so much fun."
Case Credit Union was one of four credit unions recently recognized by the CUNA Technology Council with awards for their development and use of technology. The panel that selected the winners said it did so based on strategy, process, application and results.
Like all credit unions, Case is continually both attracted by the opportunities in serving a younger market and the challenges of doing so. "Our membership is over 10% younger with the 18 to 34 demographic than the national average.
That is a significant segment of our membership and a significant piece for us moving forward."
Rolston explained that Case conducted a "top-down review" of all offerings, a comprehensive process that left no stone unturned. That review included concentrations on member accessibility and internal workflow improvements.
For the former, he explained that Case's online banking portal was upgraded to one-click payment of bills, and enhanced to provide members with charts and graphs to show them their complete financial picture, including data from all their accounts and assets, even those not associated with Case. As part of its goal to better engage the younger demographic, while creating an overall seamless connection for all members, a mobile-friendly version of its website with QR Codes linking to pages from the credit union's marketing materials was launched.
"Then we rolled out mobile browser, text, iPhone, iPad, tablet, and Android app-based banking, so members could easily view their accounts and make transactions from anywhere using a smartphone, web browser, or even simple text messages," said Rolston.
Rolston, who lauded his IT department that is comprised of seven employees, explained that a great deal of effort was placed on internal operations to make applications easier for all Case employees, too. This included rebuilding the intranet from scratch.
"We really beefed it up," said Rolston. "The new intranet has been designed to put much-needed information at the fingertips of our employees by means of reliable searchability, and a layout that was created after extensive interviews with staff of all departments and echelons to find a format that would be intuitive and helpful to the people that use the site."
Teller Workflow Examined
The internal review further included examining teller workflow, which was improved by establishing an auto-decisioning system for loans. Now members can apply, be approved, sign documents and go about their business after one short conversation, said Rolston.
"We've even made the collections process smoother with a redesign of the Resolutions Staff Workqueues, automatically assigning them accounts that most require their attention."
Rolston said Case is depending on vendor solutions, of course, but often vendors don't offer the solutions it is seeking. "It really depends on what the project is and what it entails. There are some occasions where there isn't a solution on the market that fits nicely with your needs, so you have to go to the drawing board and build something from scratch."
