Fixing the Irony of Delivering “More:” How one CU used automation to connect members to the right products and services
Here’s the paradox of consumer
preferences: People want “more,” but they don’t want endless options. They want
a streaming service that recommends the next movie, a clothing retailer that
tells them which shirt to buy, and a credit union that tells them which
products or services they should be using but aren’t. The irony is that as credit
unions work to expand our portfolios to give members “more,” it gets harder and
harder to provide that personalized guidance on what “more” each member needs.
How we scaled up our personal touch
That’s the situation we were in not too long ago at Lake Michigan Credit Union (LMCU). As we made strategic mergers and continued to organically grow our mortgage business, the size of both our portfolio and membership had outgrown our ability to keep up. To keep that personal touch—that feeling of a small credit union where our people know our members and can give personal guidance—we needed to put tech in place to support our loan officers and members in this proactive outreach.
Here’s three ways we’re leveraging the Total Expert platform to completely transform how our member engagement happens:
1) Customer intelligence: Anticipating what our members need
We have tremendous amounts of data on our members, but as most of you can probably relate to, the challenge is making use of that data. Total Expert helped us break down our customer data silos and create a single, comprehensive profile for each mortgage member, and we’ve begun to integrate the entire membership
More importantly, we don’t just see what our members are doing, but what it means: Total Expert’s Customer Intelligence gives clear intent signals and recognizes when our members are hitting common life events, like getting married, buying a house, starting a family, etc. Our LOs and marketing team see the information they need today—so they can provide that hyper-relevant, hyper-personalized, genuinely helpful guidance to an individual member.
2) Automated Journeys: Scaling up hyper-personalized communication
Having personalized insights is one thing, but we can’t expect our people to call a half million members on a weekly basis. Total Expert’s Journeys let us act on Customer Intelligence at scale. Those Customer Intelligence insights fuel journeys. Journeys are automated, multi-channel mini-campaigns that bring members educational content, helpful information, relevant products, services or special offers that are specifically customized to what we know that member needs or wants at this moment.
Using journeys has also freed up our people to focus on what they do best: making that personal connection and providing that personal touch. Journeys “prime the pump,” setting the stage for a right-timed phone call from an LO or financial advisor.
3) Pre-built content library: Giving members what they really want (financial literacy)
When Customer Intelligence tells us a member is starting a homebuying journey , the answer isn’t to send them a link to our mortgage rates. They want educational content on what they need to do as a homebuyer. But we can’t expect our staff to write ad hoc financial guidance to every member. Not everyone is an expert in every area—and moreover, they don’t have time to be creating this content from scratch.
Total Expert’s pre-built content library fills this gap. That library is constantly refreshed with content that’s timely and addresses the economic/market conditions of the moment, and even segmented for different points in that member’s educational journey. And as a bonus, we don’t have to worry about the compliance and brand headaches of asking our people to write their own content. We have now merged the Total Expert content with our marketing materials to provide our member facing staff ample resources.
Results speak for themselves: $30M in loan volume in first four months
We’re now fully up and running using the Total Expert platform—and its Customer Intelligence, Journeys and content library—to power our personalized member outreach.
And the results? Well, I’ll leave it at this: We use the Total Expert platform to generate more than $30 million in application loan volume—in just the first four months. Maybe even more importantly, our members are telling us they’re seeing the value of this personalized outreach. They like getting messages that are targeted to their needs and what they should be doing. They love getting informational content that helps them feel more confident in their financial literacy and decision-making. And the fact that they’re taking that confident action speaks to the mutual value we’re creating: We’re seeing our share-of-wallet and revenue growing because we’re helping our members to take full advantage of the specific products and services that can best help them achieve their financial goals. That’s what delivering “more” should look like.
About Author:
Eric Burgoon is the SVP of Mortgage Lending at Lake Michigan Credit Union. He has expertise in all sales channels, including direct to consumer, retail, bank branch, wholesale and correspondent. He’s an exceptional team builder with extensive experience in operations management, including compliance, credit, process and servicing.