By Ron Jooss
I've worked at both a bank and a credit union in customer service. In call centers. I didn't last long. As I tell people, I wasn't much of a banker. As an editor, I can pound out a blog entry on a Saturday morning while my three-year-old son watches Monster's Inc. in the other room. As a banker, I could single-handedly bring call center operations to a standstill while doing a simple task like encoding checks. I can't imagine, though, a better way to learn about customer service. Or marketing. Customer service is marketing.
The bank was a fairly large, well-run Midwestern financial institution that was and remains quite acquisitive. If I were interested in investing in bank stocks, this bank would be among the first firms I would investigate. For the most part I liked coming to work every day and I enjoyed the people I worked with. A group of us went out on Monday nights. We had potlucks on some days. The people that worked at the bank were probably just like the people who work at your credit union. But at the end of the day, the bank was run much differently than the credit union. And I'm not even talking about bottom-line stuff here.
I thought of that last week when I wrote two short pieces for the October issue of Credit Union Management magazine's "Management Network" section. Sebasticook Valley Credit Union, Pittsfield, Maine, is offering interest-free energy loans to its members. New England Federal Credit Union, Williston, Vt., this summer started a farmers market.
Now, I'm not naive enough to think these offerings weren't developed for some self-serving reasons. They create foot traffic and bring people to the doorstep of their respective credit unions. But they also create community and goodwill. How many businesses can say they do that? These things just would not have happened at the bank where I worked. To have even suggested such a thing would have been laughable!
In a previous entry on the Nexus Connection blog, I talked about credit unions creating word-of-mouth departments. It's developments like those at Sebasticook Valley CU and New England FCU that word-of-mouth departments could thrive on.
How would it work? If I worked at either one of the above credit unions, I would instruct employees to ask members to simply tell their friends about their interest-free loans or the farmers market. Or in New England FCU's case, I'd strongly consider setting up a booth at the market, or creating some kind of a presence. Have you ever been to a farmers market, especially a smaller one? They are the perfect gathering places. To this ex-banker, both the interest-free loans and the farmers market are extraordinary ideas—and worth talking about.
Ron Jooss, recovered banker, edits the General Management and Board sections of CUES' Credit Union Management magazine.
Get more ideas for publicizing your good works in CUES' Operation Outreach.
