The importance of senior-level customer experience managers has grown in the past few years. An April 2018 global survey by Forrester Consulting identified customer retention/loyalty and customer experience as the top two business priorities for global companies across eight industries. Grow revenue came in at No. 3.
Of the industries surveyed by Forrester, financial services firms ranked highest in customer experience maturity. Retail banks and credit unions were among the first to jump on the customer experience bandwagon, as CreditUnions.com reported in 2019. Here are six roles from real credit unions that demonstrate how any cooperative can improve member experience.
Digital Services Architect
With 10 branches in five states and a SEG membership dispersed well beyond that Honda Federal Credit Union ($1.1B, Torrance, CA) understands well the digital service imperative.
That’s why the California-based credit union continues to upgrade the online and mobile experience it offers its 70,000-plus members. That’s also why the credit union created the role of digital services architect.
Jerry Reese holds that title, and his role at Honda FCU has evolved along with what he calls the member first service strategy he now is responsible for helping to execute.
Learn more in What’s In A Name: Digital Services Architect
Member Experience Researcher
With nearly 1.3 million members scattered across the country and around the world, a delivery network of 60 branches, and a full lineup of digital delivery options, BECU ($30.2B, Tukwila, WA) is committed to refining its member experience or, as it says, its user experience (UX). The big cooperative shares its UX principles on the web and has even built a team to focus specifically on UX.
Member experience researchers are an important part of that team. These are the people who assess how products and services work from the perspective of BECU employees and members. Meg Wyble, a 15-year BECU employee, is one of the first to hold the title.
Learn more in What’s In A Name: Member Experience Researcher.
Member Insights Manager
In today’s digital age, providing a superior member experience that will keep members joining, staying, and engaging requires more than appealing products and services. It also requires knowing how appealing those products and services really are. That’s where Maura Ronayne comes in at one of the cooperative movement’s largest players, Alliant Credit Union ($15.2B, Chicago, IL).
Ronayne joined Alliant in July 2013 as a senior market research analyst and for the past three years has been senior member insights manager. Among her responsibilities, Ronayne provides the decision-makers at her credit union the right business intelligence to enable them to make intelligent decisions.
Learn more in What’s In A Name: Senior Member Insights Manager.
Head Of Financial Wellbeing And Brand Communications
Public and member relations have merged under Grant Gallagher’s leadership at Affinity Federal Credit Union ($3.8B, Basking Ridge, NJ).
Gallagher joined the Garden State cooperative as a senior chat specialist in 2009 and is now entering his second year as Affinity’s head of financial wellbeing and brand communications. He also leads his credit union’s participation in the Callahan-Gallup Collaborative Financial Wellbeing and Member Engagement Program.
His responsibilities have grown over the past decade, and his new role is a culmination of the realization that financial wellbeing and external communications with the general public and public officials alike are part and parcel to helping ensure the credit union can maximize its ability to have a positive impact.
Learn more in What’s In A Name: Head Of Financial Wellbeing And Brand Communications.
Director Of Member Success And Loyalty
Member satisfaction is more than a metric at Truliant Federal Credit Union ($3.8B, Winston-Salem, NC), where a growing team of experts is combining people and analytics to forge deeper, broader member relationships.
Jeremy Cline helps direct that effort as senior director of member success and loyalty. It’s a title the 15-year veteran of the credit union has held since October 2021, when the Tarheel State cooperative expanded his role as director of member satisfaction itself just created in 2020.
Learn more in What’s In A Name: Senior Director Of Member Success And Loyalty.
Vice President Of Member Experience
Christian Community Credit Union ($862.9M, San Dimas, CA) was an industry trailblazer when it dedicated a position to the member experience in 2015. The role started out at the assistant vice president level before evolving into a vice president position in 2017.
Charlie Allen, who previously oversaw member services for the credit union, was singularly qualified to hold the role responsible for leading the charge to deliver a consistent member experience across all service channels. In fact, the credit union created the position for Allen.
Today, Christian Community looks closely at the everyday interactions between employees and members to uncover ways to improve processes at a department level. And Allen is there every step of the way.
I began going into each of the member-facing departments to see what members and our own team were experiencing firsthand, Allen says.
This systematic approach has contributed to a significant increase in the credit union’s net promoter score and reviews. For those members who are unhappy, the credit union tracks and addresses pain points via an online request tracking system.
Learn more in What’s In A Name: Vice President Of Member Experience.
This article originally appeared on CreditUnions.com on May 2, 2022.