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CU's 'Roundup' program corrects old information
About three years ago, a teller with extra time on her hands at Statewide Federal Credit Union, Flowood, Miss., discovered that the member database had a lot of incorrect addresses and set out to update those records. Out of that self-imposed mission grew the “Bad Address Roundup Bucks” program, which pays employees $5 for each address correction they can supply.
By the time Statewide FCU introduced the incentive program, about half of the 1,000 incorrect addresses had been cleaned up, and the teller had even identified several deceased members and contacted their family members about the still-open accounts. Since other employees have joined the hunt, the credit union now has only about 50 out-of-date addresses in its database of 15,000 members, and work continues to correct every account, says General Manager Paul Armstrong.
“In a lot of cases, we were able to get the members to apply for a loan, open a checking account, or get some other service as a result of contacting them about their missing address, so I think the money we spent in Roundup Bucks has been well worth it,” Armstrong says.
“Honestly, I’d hate to try to hide from some of my employees,” he adds. “I was amazed at the lengths they went to in order to find a missing member. Facebook, the Internet, friends in personnel departments, you name it—private detectives got nothing on them! All in all, it’s been, and continues to be, a very employee-involved event, and a win-win for everyone.”
Karen Bankston is a long-time contributor to Credit Union Management and writes about credit unions, membership growth, marketing, operations and technology. She is the proprietor of Precision Prose, Stoughton, Wis.
