Park Community Credit Union is still waiting to see whether a new texting feature leads to a significant uptick in lending, but the results so far are encouraging.
The Louisville, Ky.-based credit union serves more than 90,000 members – 22,800 of whom are active mobile users and 23,500 of whom are active online users. According to Jennifer Hammond, AVP of lending, Park Community’s recent move to a centralized lending platform was an attempt make the loan process easier for members.
“We recently added the ability to apply via mobile as well, so the more we could focus on the technology available to make our members lives easier, we did shift our focus,” said Hammond.
As part of that process, the credit union launched Elle (pronounced "Ellie"), a real-time messaging platform from Berkley, Calif.-based Shastic.
“When the opportunity to be able to communicate with a member in real-time during the application process was presented, we really liked this capability and did not hesitate to implement this feature,” said Hammond.
According to Shastic CEO Joseariel Gomez, more CUs may need to adopt a similar strategy if they hope to reach a younger demographic.
“Texting is the No. 1 most-used way of communication among Americans younger than 50. It doesn’t get more preferred than this,” he said.
Park Community rolled out Elle in January and while loan applications haven’t spiked yet, said Hammond, “Where we have seen the most impact is looking at how many Elle users complete an application.” About 75 percent of those who choose to interact with Elle complete a loan application, regardless of whether they are currently members, she added.
This is just the latest example of a credit union moving into the texting space for communication or lending purposes. A growing number of CUs are adding texting functions to their arsenal for
After the first three months, Park Community CU and Shastic compiled a survey that included feedback from 156 members who used Elle. According to the findings, 41 percent of members’ applications were approved for a loan, and nearly 25 percent of the loans were funded after engaging via text message. Another encouraging statistic was that approximately 50 percent of message engagement came from non-members.
“Elle is available for members and non-members to use as a communication tool,” explained Hammond. “Anyone that choses to apply online through our website has the option to elect this text communication method. Once they agree, a welcome text is sent to them and they can chose to respond with questions or not.”
Lesson learned
With more than 50 credit union clients using Elle, Gomez said that when his team was initially building the Elle platform, they wanted the process to by as “turn-key” as possible for credit unions, with little set-up required so CUs can begin communicating with members via text on Day One.
Even though the roll-out process was fast, Hammond said the credit union still learned a valuable lesson in the process.
“Limiting the number of staff that reply to the incoming messages was beneficial just so no member was missed,” said Hammond. “Originally we had 10 people that would get a notification; we now have that narrowed down to four.”
Looking forward, Park Community CU intends to use the Elle platform in different member-facing banking configurations.
“We recently added this to feature to our mortgage products as well,” said Hammond. “We are going to monitor this volume before exploring even more options in the future.”
