BY JOE SALESKY
How strongly built is your credit union’s foundation of trust? The key to your CU’s success lies strongly in the personal connections you make with community members, and a community presence gives you a leg up in the value department. Discover the three areas of focus that will increase your trustworthiness.
Just when we thought the issues might subside, the Equifax leak yet again caused consumers to question who they can trust. Interestingly, at the same time we see Amazon, a trusted digital brand, becoming a quality-first grocery in hundreds of stores. In this time of uncertainty, the personal connection consumers have with brands that are active in their communities may be one of the secret ingredients for success built on trust.
Several banks are struggling to attract new business and grow revenue. Are branch closures and team reductions fueling this decline? Counter to the trend in the large retail banks, credit unions have added significant asset growth, with more than a billion dollars in assets added at most of the top 30 institutions. Many admit there could be much more growth, if they had the right tools to support it.
It has been proven that ad-spends have a 5X response rate in communities where banks and credit unions have branches. Is community presence the key to trust and growth? Credit unions can certainly compete with megabanks when things get “personal.” Using a proactive and strategic approach, credit unions can transform the member experience and claim more than their fair share.
Strike While the Iron Is Hot: But How?
Buck the trend, re-evaluate the potential of creating profitable branches like Apple and create opportunities for knowledgeable team members to work collaboratively with members. Seventy-eight percent of U.S. consumers expect to visit their local branch as much or more frequently in the next five years, according to a recent report by Accenture. The number of overall interactions in digital has been climbing, but the value of in-person interactions has not fallen.
Organizing operations to track and grow in-person engagement and to fuel its value with knowledgeable team members continues to differentiate the world’s most valuable brands.
