CORONADO, Calif. — The good news is credit unions still outrank banks in satisfaction surveys in almost every single area, and the reason is that members love their credit unions. The bad news: the ones who love CUs most are a dying breed-literally.
"A big part of where credit unions score the highest are still real points of vulnerability," said Rocky Clancy of J.D. Power & Associates. "It's the retirees of your original sponsors and primary SEGs who love you." And the problem is, those people are dying off, and the new members coming in to replace them don't share the same affinity.
Clancy shared a lot of good news with attendees of Credit Union Journal's Grow Show here, but it was the bad news-the points of vulnerability, that credit unions need to focus on, he said, because these are areas that are actionable because they can be improved.
In looking at overall satisfaction and breaking it down by fees, convenience of physical locations, product offerings, transaction methods and problem resolution, credit unions tended to be well ahead of their banking brethren in every single area but one: physical convenience.
"Branching is still a weakness for credit unions. Location is tough for you to compete on," he said. "But where you can make a difference is in your hours of operation. That's a real opportunity for you, because although physical location is a huge factor in convenience, hours of operation is also important. It doesn't matter if you have a branch on every corner if they're not open when people need them to be."
Another area of opportunity, Clancy said, is on the fee frontier. "You are in a position to have your cake and eat it, too, because your fees are already fewer and lower, so you have more room to move."
Noting that mergers have become a very popular way for credit unions to grow, Clancy observed there is a real downside to mergers. "Mergers hurt your image," he said. "Actual satisfaction takes a hit when you merge." The good news is, credit union mergers haven't taken on the media circus of the high-profile bank mergers, so a big opportunity exists for credit unions to go after customers of banks that are merging.
Among the other suggestions Clancy offered:
- Banking, in particular the transaction side of the business, has become a utility, and that makes it a whole lot harder to wow people.
- Managing expectations is as important as meeting them. People will wait in line or wait for loan approvals and still be satisfied if you've communicated to them approximately how long the process will take and kept them informed about the progress being made.
- Where you see acceptable policy-such as placing holds on checks-members see unresolved problems. You think you've "resolved" a problem-or that there wasn't a "problem" to begin with, but your member feels like the problem was never addressed and resolved. "You have to close the loop. AmEx is excellent at this. They always ask, are we good, did we resolve this? Get confirmation that you have resolved the problem."
