Ent Credit Union ($5.7B, Colorado Springs, CO) rolled out a new customer relationship management system earlier this year and at the same time made a significant personnel move. To help ensure its new CRM system meets its potential, Ent also has committed one of its senior managers to the newly created role of director of engagement systems.
Amy Krasikov took on the title at the beginning of 2019, a few months before the Colorado credit union began using the bpm’online CRM solution. Krasikov has nearly two decades of experience at the credit union, much of it working at the intersection of technology and marketing, including in her previous role of five years as director of marketing operations. Now, she’s committed to helping systems and people communicate successfully in ways that support Ent’s goals of service expansion, membership and deposit growth, and member engagement.
Here, Krasikov explains her new role.
What does the director of engagement services focus on? What are your responsibilities?
Amy Krasikov: This new position manages and executes large, complex projects that include both process development and system implementation components. My responsibilities include technical product management, vendor relations, user feedback, stakeholder engagement, and team development, among others.
Our first, and currently our only, engagement technology system is our new customer relationship management program. The CRM program will help us flatten communication hierarchies to improve the member and employee experience. We’ll build deeper member relationships and improve overall employee and member engagement.
What goals do you have for this new role, and how do they fit into the larger organization?
AK: My goal is to develop and maintain engagement systems that help our employees efficiently and effectively serve our members. The systems we interact with need to be flexible and nimble enough to evolve as our needs change. They need to add value. If they don’t, users won’t engage.
By listening to our business leaders and their teams, by including them in the development process, by being their advocate, we’re working toward those goals.
What made you the right person for this new position?
AK: I was a credit union leader with experience in software development, business analysis, project and product management, vendor management, and marketing.
Since joining Ent 19 years ago, I’ve spent six years as a project manager and business analyst, four years as a product manager, four years as a developer, and almost five years in marketing.
This varied experience has honed my ability to communicate complex technical needs and challenges to non-technical people, to work with cross-functional teams, to ensure deadlines are met, and to uncover needs, document requirements, and collaborate in creating world-class solutions.
What does your job description look like?
AK: Although my latest job description was created in March of this year, it’s already out of date due to learnings both the organization and I are gaining from the launch. With our iterative approach to launching our CRM, we’re slowly adding support staff, including a CRM administrator.
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Who do you report to? Who reports to you?
AK: I report to Tanan Miles, vice president of electronic banking delivery. Tanan reports to Rich Scholes, chief experience officer. A CRM administrator will report to me.
What’s your daily routine?
AK: My daily routine is quite varied. The CRM has been in production since late May 2019. We launched with a minimum product and will iterate development and launches for the next six to 12 months. I’m supporting production users and the development project.
So, on any given day, I might meet with current users to gather feedback and improve the program or with future users to gather requirements and build scenarios on how they may engage with the CRM.
I review and import data, research add-ons and integrations, review and test releases, coordinate issue resolution among multiple teams, develop dashboards, and troubleshoot problems.
How do you track success in your job?
AK: By the deployment and usage of tools that effectively enable our organization to achieve our goals by providing better member and prospect experiences that drive further engagement.
What do you do to stay current with topics that fall under your role?
AK: The CRM provider we selected is building its market in the United States, so there aren’t established user groups or meet-ups. I regularly review the vendor’s content and content related to industry leaders and am actively searching out credit union colleagues, conferences, and other connections in the CRM space.
This interview has been edited and condensed.