Written by Rick Roy Customer feedback is one of the most powerful resources available to any enterprise. Contact centers provide access to this information and allow businesses to find the keys to customer satisfaction. In 2008, the renovation of CUNA Mutual Group’s customer service operation moved from behind the scenes to center stage. During 2006 and 2007, the company, which provides financial services to credit unions and their members, designed and built new work processes, staff structures and facilities for many of the 1,300 employees who handle contacts from credit unions and members. This infrastructure, however, is not the most important part of the transformation. The culture is. We rebuilt our operation around the four things our customers told us they wanted most: > Simplicity: We are easy to conduct business with; our people and our self-service options are geared toward making the complicated simple. > Passion: We believe in taking care of our customers, and we believe in the credit union movement. > Knowledge: We invest in people who prove every day that they understand our customers, products and services. > Resolution: We strive to get it right — the first time. Our customers rank that as their number one expectation, and it’s where simplicity, passion and knowledge come together. We’ve reached the stage of internalizing those things — they’re no longer part of a transformation, they’re simply the way we do business here. What Gets Measured Gets DoneTo ensure that these four guiding principles are more than just lofty words, CUNA Mutual monitors hundreds of operational metrics each day. The company meets or exceeds its goals for these metrics more than 95 percent of the time. We continually evaluate our operations standards and adjust to exceed marketplace standards and customer expectations. An important element of improving customer service is channeling customer feedback into designing the user experience. CUNA Mutual has a natural conduit for customer feedback: hundreds of sales, service and implementation employees working with credit union people and members every day. In addition, the company’s “Voice of the Customer” program gathers customer input by: > Collecting post-transaction feedback from credit unions and members, augmented by follow-up surveys > Analyzing service issues through a structured process, including reaching out to some customers who have chosen competitors over CUNA Mutual > Capturing best practices from successful relationships > Analyzing customer complaints We use this customer feedback to drive the transformation of our customer service operation, in some cases from the ground up. So what has this experience taught me? I am frequently reminded of the importance of effective communication. Any time you invest in working with your team on change management is time spent well. It is easy to underestimate the impact of people change when you have large financial or operational goals to meet. Spending the time, informally and formally, to communicate changes — what those changes mean and what they don’t — is essential. As we move forward, we have to keep striving to make the complicated simple, to direct our passion more effectively, to increase our knowledge, and to resolve every possible issue for credit unions and members correctly — the first time. •
Answering the Call (and the Click)
On an average day, CUNA Mutual: > Pays $1.2 million in claims to credit unions and employees > Pays $1.8 million in claims to members > Handles 20,500 member service calls > Handles 3,100 credit union service calls > Processes 4,700 member product applications > Assists 7,000 visitors who get service on its Web sites In an average year, CUNA Mutual: > Pays $1.4 billion in claims > Handles 6 million service calls > Processes 1.2 million member product applications > Completes 3,300 product installations at credit unions > Trains 11,000 credit union employees > Assists 1.8 million visitors who get service on its Web sites. | 