4 minutes
“I have a way to save you some money.” This simple sentence speaks volumes in improving the financial lives of credit union members, according to Michael Neill, CSE, CEO of Michael Neill and Associates, Atlanta, and CUES’ partner in offering ServiStar, a consultation-based member engagement system.
The idea of serving members in a way that improves their financial well-being not only helps members, it helps employees. While being asked to sell can create a negative expectation for some employees, living out the credit union mission to help members can increase employee engagement.
A 2014 Gallup Group Survey found that 52 percent of employees are disengaged and 17 percent are actively disengaged. During a CUES webinar in March, Neill saw many attendees type words of agreement when he called “actively disengaged employees” CAVE dwellers: Constantly Against Virtually Everything.
“You’re not going to create outstanding organizational performance with disengaged people,” Neill said.
The answer to increasing employee engagement, for many credit unions, is to offer incentives. Neill disagrees. He finds that incentives do not work on those who don’t want to sell. “Incentives work minimally, and it’s a shame that they work at all,” he said.
For credit unions already paying competitive salaries, it’s a challenge to offer an incentive large enough to entice those who do not want to sell. And for those who already sell, the credit union ends up paying an incentive for business it would have gained, regardless of the monetary reward.
Top Sellers Don’t ‘Sell’
In fact, a study reveals, those who excel at sales actually don’t think about what they are doing as selling; they think about it as helping members. The study, “Attributes and Skills Common Among High-Performing Sales and Service Staff,” was conducted by Neill and Madison, Wis.-based Filene Research Institute.
One webinar attendee chatted her agreement: “That is EXACTLY what my top ‘sales’ rep thinks like.”
Another webinar attendee chatted, “When I give kudos to the ones that want to do referrals, they kind of get insulted. They feel like they’re just doing their job, which is the truth.”
Neill points to the importance of the words used both in communicating to staff and in how staff communicate with members. Reinforcing the goal of saving money vs. selling a product gets results at both levels of the conversation.
Saving Members $7 Million
One example of great success in thinking differently is Cardinal Community Credit Union, a $176 million shop in Mentor, Ohio. In 2014, this ServiStar credit union saved members more than $7 million in refinanced loans and “stolen” checking accounts.
Robert Rossetti, VP/sales and service at Cardinal Community CU joined the webinar to shed light on the credit union’s program called Save a Member Money (SAMM).
The idea stemmed from a discussion between Cardinal Community CU and Neill as they implemented the ServiStar program. The CU needed to change the typical sales narrative to engage employees. The SAMM program was born when the credit union decided to track dollars saved by switching members to its Visa, consumer loans and mortgages.
The SAMM program then grew into a key metric the credit union would report to not only its staff but its board and membership. “It took employees who were afraid to sell and turned them into passionate member advocates,” said Neill.
Employee engagement went from 40 percent to 97 percent in the last year, Rosetti said.
He explained staff’s reaction to receiving a weekly email update about how much money the credit union has saved its members: “The first thing that employees did was print off the email (showing the money they saved members) so it could be published in the lobby for members to see. And they immediately came to me and said, ‘Robert, do you know that we’re already at $1.4 million?’ I didn’t ask them ‘How many referrals did you have yesterday?’ I didn’t ask them, ‘How many loan signings did you have last week?’ I didn’t ask them any of that.”
While focusing on referral numbers and loan signings may seem like it would help employees work toward goals, Neill finds it has the opposite effect. “Remember, when we do that (discuss progress toward sales goals), we’re speaking actually antithetically to what engages the employee,” says Neill. “When we worked with Cardinal, when we got to the idea of saving a member money, that flipped the switch for people.”
Neill focuses on living out the credit union mission and teaching employees how to say the right thing to the member at the right time. “To be great, to live out the mission of your credit union–whatever the actual missions says–the bottom line is to improve the financial well-being of the members of your credit union and the communities that you serve.”
