GREENVILLE, S.C. -
And as backward as that may sound, it worked out well for the $90-million credit union that now does, indeed, have a call center.
"The problem we had was our internal communication," said Tracy Dangerfield, vice president of information technology at GFCU. "It was really about work flow."
But it did start off as a way to improve member service. "We wanted to make sure that when a member calls with a question or a problem, they don't have to repeat themselves every time they get transferred to a new person and have to explain the question or problem all over again."
To that end, the CU wanted to create a "ticket"-a sort of work order with all the details of every contact with that member that could be forwarded on and added on to by each staffer who had contact with that member about a given problem or question.
Greenville FCU turned to Galaxy Plus and Member Relationship Plus program to fill the bill, and the credit union quickly realized that its new membership-relationship management tool could also serve as an interface between its employees.
"We were inundated with Post-it Notes and pieces of paper, and there was no way to track that communication," Dangerfield related. "If an employee was sick, there was no way of knowing what that employee discussed with or promised to a member."
For the credit union's IT department, whose typical "client" is actually a member of the staff, the system also became a way of organizing and monitoring requests for IT support.
"It allowed us to go paperless, and it became a checkpoint for that communication," she explained. "Before, it was impossible for IT to keep up with all of the IT requests."
Suddenly, the "call center application" was a work flow tool with applications for just about every aspect of the credit union. "Now it's the lifeline for everything," Dangerfield commented. "We had it all up in running a good eight months before we ever launched the call center. What it allowed us to do was to build a knowledge base that is integrated with our core system."
One of the reasons Greenville chose the Galaxy product is because several of the call center outsourcers are already compatible with Galaxy. GFCU's call center is currently entirely in house, but Dangerfield said when and if it expands the call center hours beyond regular business hours, it likely will outsource those expanded hours-and it already knows it will easily be able to integrate its existing system with several call center vendors.
The CU has logged some impressive results, using 60% less paper, saving $4,000 per year, increasing efficiency by 50%, boosting productivity 25% and reducing security risks by 50%.
But with any change comes challenge.
"Probably the single most important thing a credit union needs to do if it's going to implement something like this is to get the entire senior management team completely on board," Dangerfield said. "If they aren't, it's probably going to fail, or you won't be happy with the system, no matter which one you choose. You are invoking a culture change down to the level of the way people think and approach their work."
Dangerfield's advice to credit unions looking to emulate this best practice: look at a vendor's "up time" and support.
"Support is critical if something goes down. Ours is a web-based application, so if the vendor's server goes down, our access is down. So you want to look at the up time of the product, and you want to know the support is there," she said. "You want to take a good look at the functionality of the product. And you have to remember this is not just a call center product. Last but not least, make sure it can be accessed remotely if you ever wanted to be able outsource."
FOR MORE INFORMATION
www.greenvillefcu.com
www.galaxyplus.com
