2 minutes
Evaluate new members' service experiences
At the big-picture level, Net Promoter Score shows an overall view of member loyalty, based on the likelihood members would recommend the credit union to others. Now, Member Loyalty Group, Chicago, is tightening the NPS focus to help credit unions evaluate their new member onboarding experience and how quickly new members can become loyal.
Among the credit union service organization’s 50 client credit unions, the “Relationship NPS” among new members averaged 69 percent at year-end, with higher-performing credit unions registering an average 6 points higher. Both groups are trending generally upward since these credit unions began focusing on improving the new member experience in 2009.
These findings underscore “that it’s possible to build strong relationships with members from the beginning, instead of writing it off with the assumption that it takes a while to build loyalty,” says Member Loyalty Group Program Director Rebecca Secor, a CUES member.
“As a point of comparison, we measure several other transaction experiences by asking members for their feedback immediately following various experiences with the credit union,” she explains. Figure I, below, shows the average NPS calculated for branch and new product experiences as well as for new members:
“As you can see, the average NPS for new member is the lowest among all of these transaction experiences. However, the trends indicate that credit unions are closing the gap between NPS for this experience compared to other transactions,” Secor notes.
Two strategies that have proved effective in building loyalty among new members are:
- proactively reaching out to members after they open a new account, either in person or online, to ask if they need checks or a debit card, if they’ve tried the credit union’s mobile app or online banking, or if they have any questions about their credit union or new accounts and
- helping members access their accounts immediately by setting up online and mobile access, providing “instant issue” debit and credit cards, and demonstrating the use of remote tellers in cashless branches.
As a quick refresher, the Net Promoter Score is based on asking members a simple question on a 0 to 10 scale: “How likely is it that you would recommend the organization to a colleague, family member or friend?” Respondents are categorized as Promoters (9 or 10 rating), Passives (7-8), and Detractors (0-6), and the percentage of Detractors is then subtracted from that of Promoters to calculate the NPS.
Member Loyalty Group uses two main forms of the Net Promoter Score, (1) the Relationship NPS to assess members’ overall affinity for their credit union and (2) the Transactional NPS, which evaluates how likely members are to recommend the credit union to others based on their most recent interaction.
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.
Photo credit: Dollarphotoclub.com/ Petr Ciz
