March 1, 2023
A strong communication plan is vital for credit unions to develop long-lasting relationships with their members and reach prospects. Connecting with your members and ensuring you’re connecting with them at the right place at the right time and with the right messaging will help you build your business and assist in developing generational membership. Here are seven strategies to strengthen your credit union’s connection to members.
Pew Research Center found that 97% of Americans own a cellphone, meaning that’s a foolproof way to reach your members. Third-party integrations with your credit union core processing software, such as Eltropy, will assist you in reaching, engaging, and serving your members. Your credit union can blast out text alerts about lending options, have one-on-one conversations with members about their concerns, and send out collections messaging to help with that process. Because these platforms integrate with the core you already have, you do not need to worry about bringing on an entirely new messaging system.
A lot of the correspondence that flows out of a credit union is transactional – and doesn’t elicit any emotions in members; however, there are different times when your credit union can make communication more personal.
For example, when trying to sell a new product to a member, your messaging can sound more conversational and consultative versus aggressive and pushy. When sending sales emails to your members, you can try the following:
Social media is essentially cost-free and a highly effective way to reach your members, especially Gen Z targets. Some social media platforms that are critical for Credit Unions to leverage include:
Are your members chomping at the bit to get in touch with you? Is your team unable to handle support calls that are flowing in? A chat widget for your website may resolve these issues. You’ll be able to get in touch with your members in some form at any time of day and give them peace of mind that their requests are being handled.
Financial situations vary significantly from member to member, so a standard FAQ section on your website might not address all the nuances of your members’ finances. Live chat widgets, which show in the form of a popup chat box on your website, are easy to embed in your website’s code. Your team can utilize the live agent feature, bot/AI, or both.
There are a few ways to determine which model will fit your credit union best. If you experience a lot of unique questions that involve complex answers, you will want a live chat feature so an agent can appropriately respond. If your questions are very generic, but you need more than just an FAQ page – or you do not have the staff to respond to chats – a bot may be the best choice. If you’re somewhere in between or want to ensure your members have access to some sort of answer 24/7, a hybrid widget (live and bot) is optimal.
One way to build member loyalty and show you care about their opinion (and improving their experience) is by sending out customer satisfaction surveys. Additionally, you can send out customer feedback surveys to elicit information on what products/services they like best and what they think your credit union could offer in the future to be more competitive with other CUs and banking institutions.
It is essential to show your members that your credit union cares about them and their financial success. There are a multitude of ways to say thank you and the method you choose may be dependent on your member size and budget. From handwritten notes to thank you cards to anniversary date emails (thank someone for being with you for ten years!), it is critical to show your members some appreciation.
If your core offers eServices, like Sharetec does, you can use target marketing to send targeted marketing messages to your members’ accounts. They can directly access these messages from their browser, whether it’s on a desktop or from their smartphone. Choose which messages are applicable to each member, so that they’ll only receive notifications that address what they may be looking for.
You need to keep in touch with your members – and you also need to provide them with the latest in technology so that they can have access to all the banking features that they need. At Sharetec, we develop innovative credit union core processing solutions that make it simple for your members to access the financial info they need. Along with our partners, we provide various credit union software features and integrations that will make your life, and your members, easier.
To learn more about Sharetec and how we can assist you, whether you’re interested in knowing more about our core processing software or are a long-term customer looking to learn more about ways our core can help you communicate with your members, contact us at 844-802-4441 or by clicking here!
