Blog

January 6, 2025

Gathering Member Feedback: How To & Why

Credit unions must determine members’ satisfaction levels, as satisfaction directly correlates with growth, retention, and acquisition. From increasing member loyalty and lifetime value to pinpointing areas of opportunity (whether it be service, products, or another operational aspect), your credit union can learn much from conducting a pulse check on satisfaction.

If your credit union is inundated with other projects or lacks the manpower to spearhead a new strategy, have no fear. You can gather feedback, analyze the data, and interpret your results quickly yet effectively.

Choose Your Metrics

You want to consistently measure your satisfaction levels with the same metric(s). Two of the most common metrics you can choose are:

1. Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT): A CSAT measures how satisfied your members are with your credit union’s overall experience, products, or services, but can also measure specific service and support interactions. A simple survey with a Likert scale (1-5 or 1-10) to gauge satisfaction is a satisfactory tool for CSAT.
2. Net Promoter Score (NPS): The NPS score measures how likely your members are to recommend your credit union to others and is a gauge of member loyalty. To determine NPS, you’d survey your members on a scale of 1-10, asking them how likely they’d recommend your CU to friends, family, and acquaintances. Members who rate a six or below are called “detractors,” those who give a score of 7 or 8 are “passives,” and those who provide a 9 or 10 are “promoters.” The % of promoters minus the % of detractors will provide you with your NPS score.

Select Multiple Channels

It’s best to select multiple feedback channels, as your members may prefer one over another. A few top choices include:

• Surveys: Surveys are a great tool because they are highly customizable and can yield quantitative and qualitative data.
• A good rule of thumb is to ask less than five open-ended questions per survey.
• For a CSAT survey, you should only include three questions at most (the CSAT multiple-choice question and one or two additional open-ended questions to gain more context)

Send satisfaction survey links via e-mail, text, or digital banking platform (and send members a push notification to remind them to complete their surveys). Your invitation is just as crucial as your survey and should include how long the survey would take and a “thank you in advance” statement.

• Post-Phone Interaction Feedback: After a support or service call, you can ask your members to rate their call experience satisfaction.
• Social Media and Google Business Profile Reviews: Gather anecdotal feedback via your social media and GBP pages. One caveat is that you should promptly respond to these reviews, particularly on Google, as they will impact your GBP ranking. That means that these pages should be frequently monitored for activity, which can be quickly done through the setup of notifications. You will also be unable to gauge CSAT or NPS through these digital channels.
• Website and App Feedback: If you’re launching a new website or digital banking app, implement a “feedback” button or pop-up to ask your users to rate their experience on certain pages or once they’ve completed specific actions.

Ask the Correct Questions

For a simple survey to measure CSAT or NPS, you may only need to ask one question to get your desired feedback. But, if you’d like to dive deeper into member satisfaction, you want to ask additional relevant questions.

Questions can be related to:

• General Satisfaction
  • What do you value most in your banking experience with [credit union]?

• Website & Mobile Experience
  • How would you rate your experience with our online (or mobile) banking platform?
  • How easy can you manage your accounts with our online banking platform?
  • What would make your digital banking experience more convenient?

• Promotions & Value
• Service & Support
  • Was your teller able to assist with your needs at our branch today?
  • Do you have any suggestions for improving our in-branch service?
  • What associate assisted you at our credit union during this interaction?

• Industry-Specific
• Community Involvement

SurveyMonkey provides a quick start guide to 50 basic customer satisfaction questions you can ask that will help to strengthen your CSAT and better understand your members.

It’s highly recommended to ask quantitative questions (with a scale rating) and open-ended questions that allow members to provide in-depth feedback.

Analyze the Data

After you’ve collected your feedback, it’s time to analyze the data. You want to identify trends and patterns and look for common themes in open-ended responses (recurring suggestions, compliments, and complaints).

To better identify the underlying themes of your data, you can:

• Visualize the Data: Present your feedback in charts, graphs, and dashboards. This visualization will help make the data more interpretable.
• Integrate with other systems: Many marketing and CRM tools you use may integrate. If the platforms connect, do it. You’ll be able to enrich your data analysis.
• Analyze Sentiment: Identify positive, negative, and neutral sentiments within qualitative feedback. Sentiment tools will assist you with determining your sentiment scores and identifying recurring patterns in member feedback. This will help you find and address the main concerns and areas of opportunity.

Take Action

Once you’ve analyzed your feedback and identified necessary improvements, you must address it. Additionally, you should reach out to your members who have provided feedback to let them know that their voices have been heard and that you’re implementing specific actions to improve the credit union experience. If a member knows you’re listening to their concerns and acting on their comments, they’ll likely turn dissatisfied to loyal.

Continue to Track

Gathering member feedback is not one-and-done. You need to do this consistently and regularly. A quick quarterly survey is recommended to monitor ongoing member satisfaction. If you want real-time feedback for member/staff interactions, new products, or digital updates, you should capture member satisfaction immediately. These surveys or review requests should be made on demand.

How can your core assist with gathering feedback?

Your core processor and digital banking partner, Sharetec, and its integration partners can assist you with collecting feedback from your members. A few ways you can promote feedback?

• Pop-up reminders with a clickable link in Sharetec On-the-Go Mobile
• Push notification reminders via Larky nudge, integrated with Sharetec On-the-Go Mobile
• Promotional banners to remind members and encourage survey completion via Sharetec On-the-Go Online
• Add banners to your email correspondence
• Add reminders for your front-line staff to ask members to provide feedback, which can be added via tasks through Sharetec Notebook

Interested in learning how Sharetec core processing and digital banking can improve member satisfaction and retention? Contact us today for a 1:1 customized demo.