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Credit Union Match and its successful Kickstarter campaign made industry headlines in March. Created and developed by CUCollaborate, the campaign raised over $50,000 and boosted awareness of the company’s vision: By working together and leveraging collective knowledge, CUs will move mountains.
Credit Union Match aims to solve a problem that has long troubled the CU world. When formally launched in July, the CU-industry-backed website will help consumers figure out which credit unions they are eligible to join and, ultimately, decide which one is right for them, says Sam Brownell, company founder.
To join, consumers will be directed to a web page of the credit union’s choosing, such as an online account opening page or a contact page. “We will also pass their information along to the credit union as a qualified lead,” he notes.
The website’s search engine will run off a database of government and credit union-provided field-of-membership information.
How will prospective members find out about this handy tool? “Consumers will learn about our site primarily through digital advertising but really the main way they will end up using our services is probably through one of our affiliates,” Brownell explains.
“We’ll white label our search engine out to anyone who wants to use it for free and any leads coming through those sites will be treated the same way. So far we have tentative interest in using our search engine from PSCU, CO-OP (CO-OP Financial Services), and NAFCU (National Association of Federal Credit Unions). We are really hoping that CUNA (Credit Union National Association) and the state leagues and associations will come on board too,” he said in early May.
CUCollaborate expects to launch an online credit union community in July as well, with the Credit Union Match database housing the member CUs’ profiles. The community will boast message boards, a dynamic targeted messaging system between credit unions, a library of shared documents, and a vendor directory with detailed product profiles, credit union satisfaction ratings and other features. While viewing vendor client profiles and product details, credit unions will also be able to review and discuss those products anonymously with other credit unions.
The community also will have tools to help credit unions identify areas to expand field of membership and help benchmark social media interaction and development. The underlying idea behind all its resources is that credit unions can strengthen and grow the industry by sharing knowledge and resources. For the remainder of 2015, all credit unions can participate in the online community for free. In 2016, a small annual subscription fee will be assessed to each CU that wishes to participate.
As part of helping CUs build their collective knowledge, CUCollaborate also is researching issues critical to major credit union decisions, including satisfaction with vendors and products. Brownell says the company is building platforms that turn individual credit unions’ survey responses (whether on the institutional level, employee level, or member level) into aggregate reports that can be collectively consumed and applied. The anonymity of individual survey responses is particularly important, he notes, to promote candid opinions that will be useful to CU decision makers.
Importantly, member CUs have input into what research is done, the types of resources collected, and solutions developed. Executive summaries of CUCollaborate’s first two research reports are available: Core Processing Satisfaction Survey and Mobile Banking Satisfaction Survey.
Lisa Hochgraf is a CUES senior editor.
