Improving Customer Service within Your Credit Union

Running a credit union can mean you are ideally placed to serve your local community immediately. Being integrally connected at a ground level means you will often get exclusive and first-hand knowledge of changes and developments in your local area thanks to word of mouth and providing excellent customer service is one vital part in retaining customers and attracting new ones to your credit union.

How can you make sure you are providing all of your customers with the best service possible?

Staff Training

One of the main reasons people look to move away from credit unions or banks is down the fact they feel dissatisfied with the service they have received. Poor knowledge levels or staff not being able to work well independently can be frustrating to customers and staff alike. Gaps in knowledge and lack of understanding of job roles is a big factor in why people look to leave their employment.

Give your staff the tools they need to do their job well and thoroughly and deal with enquiries efficiently without having to refer to a senior member of staff unless necessary.

Software

Are you using old and outdated methods of keeping records or staying on top customer savings or lending? You want a system that allows you to easily manage all of your records and allow you the flexibility needed to tailor your services to each customer. Check out FISCAL to see how your credit union can benefit from better tracking of small business lending.

Look to streamline what you do and how you do it to improve better how you deal with our accounts and manage specific customers based on their needs.

Self Service

Credit unions are known for their more personal approach to finances over larger banks, and this is great. However, recent times have shown that customers need to be able to self serve themselves when it comes to enquiries and banking. Allowing customers the option to take care of essential business via online or mobile banking can help improve your relationship. Set up easy to find FAQs or install a chatbot on your site to answer the most commonly asked questions. A chatbot can respond immediately and then direct customers to a real-life person should their enquiry be too complex for the chatbot’s capabilities. This avoids sending the customer on a path leading to face to face visits or phone calls.

Be Consistent

Whatever your customers need from you needs to be accessible in every point of contact they have from you. Research has shown that many enquiries start on one platform, e.g. online before ultimately being taken care via another method, for example, over the phone. 

Making sure your services are complete and consistent via all access points including face to face is vital to allow for ease of use and to remove any difficulty they may face, e.g. not being able to complete a transfer on mobile banking and having to switch to desktop. This pushes for a more consistent and user-friendly experience and will improve how well you can serve your customers and the local community.