Highlights:
- To attract new members, credit unions must offer a better member experience
- RingCentral’s cloud communications platform offers digital communications channels
- Financial services communications platforms empower employees to better help members
- Built-in security offers peace of mind
Credit unions face a challenge: they have a sizable customer base comprised of people in their late 50s and older, yet they haven’t succeeded in attracting their members’ children. One of the ways they can do that is by showing they put members first.
Putting members first requires communicating with members the way they want. A unified communications platform enables members to access a variety of communication channels for a better member experience, and it keeps their information safe, providing them with peace of mind.
Unified communications platforms for credit unions
A unified communications platform offers a number of communication channels (text, video, and telephony) as well as collaboration tools (such as file sharing) in a single location. Market-leading financial services communications platforms also offer contact center capabilities such as:
- Omnichannel capabilities
- Skills-based routing
- Agent management, including workforce management and workforce optimization capabilities
- Reporting and analytics
- Self-service customer options
- Integration with directory
- Chatbots
- IVR system
- Predictive, proactive, and progressive dialers
- Coaching and learning tools
- Scripting
- Dynamic reply assistance
How a financial services communications platform creates a member-first experience
Creating a members-first experience begins with understanding what members want and what frustrates them about your current processes. Credit union members are three times more likely than non-members to be dissatisfied with their financial institutions because they don’t have access to the latest technologies.
Moreover, over 15 percent complained interactions with their credit union were too complicated, while just over four percent noted they had to visit a branch too often for transactions. Nearly nine percent criticized poor data security.
That’s where a financial services communications platform comes in. It creates a member-first experience in the following ways:
- Offering a variety of channels to members
- Providing self-service options
- Equipping employees to provide better service to members
- Setting up a dedicated hotline for new members
- Providing built-in security features
Offering a variety of channels to members
Some customers still feel comfortable carrying out transactions at the branch. However, many others would prefer to make their banking processes as digital as possible.
Accenture’s 2020 Global Banking Consumer Survey showed that 47 percent of customers wanted to open a new account through a mobile app or website, while 37 percent wanted to do it on a desktop or laptop.
A financial services communications platform offers members more communication channels than just telephony or branch visits. In addition to telephony, members can hold video conferences or send a chat to the credit union.
Providing self-service options
Millennials and Gen Zers, in particular, want self-service options. Research bears this out: banking customers between the ages of 18 to 26 rank self-service capabilities as more important than trust. They value the ability to complete tasks on their own.
With functionality such as chatbots and interactive voice response (IVR) menus, credit unions can give their members self-service options. Chatbots answer simple questions for members. If a chatbot doesn’t have the answer, it will pass the interaction off to a human.
IVR menus, when done right, can be excellent self-service tools. They can automate a number of day-to-day tasks. That’s possible if two things happen:
- The menu options take customers where they want to go
- The IVR menu is integrated into business applications such as a core solution
We’ll illustrate with an example. Let’s say Amanda wants to check her account balance. She dials the credit union’s number and the IVR menu leads her to that option quickly. Thanks to an integration with banking software, Amanda can easily check what’s in her account without having to wait to speak with a human customer service representative.
Equipping employees to provide better member service
There are times when members need to speak to a human being. Sometimes, members encounter a credit union employee who simply doesn’t know how to help them, or is constrained and can’t reach out to others in the organization who could assist.
A financial services communications platform enables employees to help members in three ways:
- It features a knowledge base in the cloud for employees to access
- It offers an internal directory with a presence indicator, so employees can connect members to internal experts on the spot
- It enables employees to message internal departments to get a faster answer to a member inquiry
A knowledge base gives employees the answers they need at their fingertips, while the internal directory allows employees to find the right person in the organization to solve a given problem.
Setting up a dedicated hotline for new members
Credit unions pride themselves on offering a better experience than large, privately held banks. A financial services communications platform helps deliver on that claim with the creation of a dedicated hotline for new members.
If new members have issues, they’ll be routed to a specific team member who can help them navigate the credit union. It makes the member experience smoother and more pleasant for them and helps with member retention.
Providing built-in security features
Putting your members first also means keeping their confidential data safe. Credit unions can be vulnerable to data breaches even if they’re not hacked themselves; 82 percent of credit unions between 2018 and 2020 were negatively affected by breaches of local businesses.
Market-leading financial services communications platforms secure confidential information with multiple layers of protection, 24/7 platform monitoring, and a 99.999 percent uptime service level agreement for high reliability. Encryption between all endpoints keeps your member data safe from unauthorized users.
RingCentral’s financial services communications platform supports a members-first credit union culture
RingCentral’s financial services communications platform makes credit union communications digital by offering multiple communications channels and self-service options. Moreover, they give employees the tools they need and enable a dedicated helpline for new members. Industry-leading security keeps member information safe. To learn more about how RingCentral can help you create a members-first culture for your credit union, get a demo.
Originally published Sep 28, 2021, updated Jan 08, 2024
