In the bustling landscape of credit unions, the mantra of “focus on the member” rings loud and clear. But as preferences evolve toward digital interactions and multifaceted needs emerge, who takes charge of ensuring exceptional member experiences?
PSECU ($8.2B, Harrisburg, PA) has given member experience a chief designation in the org chart, as well as added new staff to support member experience, including two member journey analysts and three experience product owners assigned to account origination and deposit products, consumer lending, and real estate lending.
“If everybody owns member experience, then nobody owns it,” says Lindsay Oparowski, associate vice president of digital member experience at PSECU. “That’s why the experience product owner role is so important. It’s the everyday job of this person to make sure all the pieces come together.”
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MX For The Life Cycle
PSECU treats member experience as part of the product. For example, a major component of a loan product is the rate, but so is the ease of use of the online loan application and the number of clicks needed to make a payment.
“How a member gets a product, especially in a digital-first credit union, is as important as the features of the product itself,” Oparowski says. “The experience they have in the digital spaces plays a vital role in their loyalty and retention.”
To ensure MX encompasses the entire life cycle of a product begins with the member journey analysts, who use a prototyping tool called Figma to create journey maps. These maps serve as an outline for a member’s experience with a product or service and highlights opportunities to reduce friction as well as root causes across systems and internal business units.
Member journey analysts share the maps with the business units to gain alignment and common understanding. The next step is when the experience product owner takes over, meeting with impacted teams to determine how to address root causes and solve challenges.
“The product owner determines how we do it,” says Emily Lingle, PSECU’s member experience manager who leads the team of product owners. “How do we make it the most efficient and deliver the most value? Are we engaging the members in the right way? Are we optimizing the experience overall and not just in this small silo? Are we creating friction in other places? Even the valuation: Should we do the work? That comes into play a lot for the experience product owner.”
PSECU uses a collaborative tool to design prototypes and collect feedback on complex processes and projects, but credit unions without advanced technical tools needn’t worry. Oparowski says what’s really important is the ability to translate concepts, communicate well, and forge alignment. In identifying people to fill experience product owner roles, the credit union has placed a premium on analytical and collaborative skills in addition to financial services experience.
“Because those roles are tasked with determining the best approach, they need to have strong communication skills and be able to think forward enough with their analysis to answer questions stakeholders might not have asked,” Oparowski says. “They need to understand their stakeholder values, support that with data, and bring that data to the table to make the case that we’re solving the problem the best way.”
Spotlight Project: Onboarding Experience
Starting last November, PSECU began working on a high-profile project to replace its digital account origination and onboarding platform.
“That’s the first digital interaction with PSECU,” Oparowski says. “We want this experience to set the stage for their relationship with the credit union — quick and easy to navigate, convenient, and safe.”
CU QUICK FACTS
PSECU
DATA AS OF 12.31.23
HQ: Harrisburg, PA
ASSETS: $8.2B
MEMBERS: 591,730
BRANCHES: 4
EMPLOYEES: 851
NET WORTH: 10.1%
ROA: 0.09%
For this project, the member experience team has led not only the cross-disciplinary implementation team but also the RFP process and selection of the vendor. The experience product owner has worked across IT, member services, fraud prevention, and more to ensure the credit union can launch the new system later this year.
“We’re reducing the number of screens and the amount of data applicants have to enter and using technology and new data sources to allow members additional funding options all under five min,” Oparowski says.
It’s a major undertaking, and the credit union already is looking for opportunities beyond this year’s rollout.
“We have innovative places to go with this platform even after we launch it,” Oparowski says.
It takes a balancing act to meet all of the needs of the organization while streamlining the member experience at every turn. Today, the member experience process is baked into multiple layers of PSECU. For credit unions that aren’t so far along in their member experience journey, Lingle suggests starting with gaps in processes as potential areas of improvement.
“Examine your workstreams and then start looking at your stakeholders that belong to those workstreams,” Lingle says. “Find the gaps and where you have to make up the difference.”
Oparowski advises credit unions to tap into member feedback to help prioritize potential projects.
“Make sure you’re spending your time where it’s going to make the biggest impact for the member,” Oparowski says. “There are hundreds of things you could be doing, but are you working on the most impactful few, the things that are going to really bring satisfaction and ease to the member experience?”
