How To Manage Complaints And Overcome Crises

Whether to complaints or internal vulnerabilities, credit unions must respond quickly and transparently to the questions and concerns of their memberships. The credit unions featured this week on CreditUnions.com demonstrate how to do this — and more — effectively.

Whether to complaints or internal vulnerabilities, credit unions must respond quickly and transparently to the questions and concerns of their memberships. But how can credit unions do so effectively?

In September alone, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau handled more than 23,000 complaints submitted through its Consumer Complaint Database. The tool allows consumers to lodge grievances against a financial institution and many different kinds of products and services

So far in 2015, only 23 consumers have filed a formal complaint against BECU via the CFPB. That’s roughly one complaint for every 41,000 of the $13.9 billion institution’s members. Of course, not all complaints against the institution go through the CFPB. Instead, BECU uses a customer relationship management system to track and organize all member feedback through its branch network, call centers, social media channels, and Net Promoter Score surveys.

In A Complaint By Any Other Name Is Member Feedback Callahan writer Erik Payne talks with Leslie Frazier, BECU’s retail experience support manager, to uncover three best practices for complaint resolution and management.

Patelco Credit Union has come a long way since CreditUnions.com originally featured the credit union’s budding complaint resolution program in late 2013. Back then, Patelco had recently implemented a formal process to resolve and track member complaints and had expanded its complaint resolution program from one staffer to a dedicated team of employees.

In The Evolution Of Patelco’s Complaint Resolution System, Callahan contributor Sharon Simpson talks to Marla Lucas, Patelco’s member experience manager, about how the credit union moved beyond its outgrown manual approach and implemented a formal scoring program.

Having a plan to handle complaints is important; so, too, is a plan to handle unforeseen crises. Disaster planning begins with preparedness, and that means thinking about what might spring up to take down a credit union’s operations.

A good first step is making a list of what could possibly go wrong, advises Stephen Adwell, vice president of compliance and security at core processor EPL in Birmingham, AL. For more advice on how to bolster a disaster and business continuity plan, read How To Recover When The System Fails, by Callahan senior writer Marc Rapport.

And in How Fairfax County FCU Moved Beyond Disaster And Back To Work, Callahan contributer Dahna Chandler writes about how an established disaster recovery plan helped Fairfax County Federal Credit Union serve members after a fire destroyed its data center on July 11, 2013.

Finally, check out the CreditUnions.com Graphic Of The Week, 7 Facts About Consumer Complaints. Callahan analyst Janet Lee shows why member experience is important and how to manage complaints when experience falls short.

Happy Reading!

November 30, 2015

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