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Employees can stay connected at SEG visits or other events
This is Web-only bonus coverage from “Taking CRM Online” in the December 2014 issue of CU Management.
Most of the time, taking CRM online is a matter of integrating customer relationship management databases and software with the credit union’s website in order to capture member data and serve members better. But credit unions can also improve the member experience by making their CRM application available on mobile devices for CU employees. The Farm Credit system, whose member-owned structure is similar in many ways to that of the credit union movement, does exactly this.
“We have a mobile feature of the CRM platform on the sales staff's phones,” explains Hollie Bunn, regional vice president at $20 billion, 1,100-employee Farm Credit Services of Mid-America in Louisville, Ky. “It’s a direct path into [members’] activities and what they're doing. [Employees] can see customer demographics and high-level information about customers wherever they are, and they can key in data wherever they are.”
Bunn explains that the institution, which uses Aptean’s Pivotal CRM solution, expects its sales staff to be away from their computer terminals 65 to 85 percent of the time, engaging with the community and networking.
“Face-to-face goes a really long way,” she says. “We are out on properties and in the community every day. [The CRM app] gives the sales staff the most relevant information they need for each customer, plus a way to provide information back to the sales office. If they meet [a customer] at the football game and they know that they're interested in a deal, they can put that in the system, and then the people who are monitoring it back in the office, all the support staff, will see that an action can be taken very, very quickly.”
Before they had the CRM system, Bunn says reps would have to scribble down the details of customer interactions, then enter them into the system once they got back to the office. A lot of the time, it just didn’t happen, she says.
“So we gave them a window to be able to do that on the spot,” she says. “It’s something they’re very excited about. It's one thing back in the office, but it's another thing if it's in their pocket.”
Jamie Swedberg is a freelance writer based in Athens, Ga.
