Building loyalty with your members starts from the day they join. Actually, it starts with the marketing message that attracted the new member in the first place. But when they join, that’s when the rubber hits the road to build your credit union’s relationship with that member. Study after study has shown that the first few days and weeks after a member joins your credit union are crucial in laying a solid foundation of service to retain that individual for a long, long time.

The term “onboarding” describes this laying of a solid foundation in the early days of a new membership and welcoming the new member with special offers for services, constant communications for any support issues, and any follow-up inquiries. These efforts all occur within the first 90 days or so to ensure the new member feels at home. It’s also the prime time to “upsell” them any products or services.

Realizing the benefits of this early bonding time with new members, $539 million/32,600-member Sb1 Federal Credit Union, Philadelphia, was looking to enhance its onboarding process for increased growth. So the CU set specific strategies to build the proper welcoming steps. Then in November 2009, the CU added the memberWORKS contact management technology from fiVISION, Indianapolis, to trigger and track activities the credit union uses to keep new members engaged–and ultimately build loyalty.

This system’s member service modules form an easy-to-use member care platform designed specifically for credit unions. Staff from many areas within the organization–not just the front-line folks–can leverage the intuitive feel and common sense approach deployed within the solution. It provides staff with direct access to the information and capability they need and want to be successful serving members.

For example, Sb1 FCU’s new contact management module provides the ability to capture and record discussions with members easily, using “contact categories” or free form text. The service request module gives staff an easy way to capture actionable items that are routed to another department or set for fulfillment at a later time. Both are supported with reporting capabilities to analyze why members are in contact with various parts of the credit union–such as: “What were the top 25 reasons members called our contact center last week?”

A useful feature utilized heavily at Sb1 FCU to aid the onboarding process is the staged service requests that have “sleep times” set to prompt future-dated activities. A timed service request, for instance, would be “Send member welcome e-mail” or “Send member credit score in two weeks.” This handy module can schedule many automated timed requests for consistent communication with the member.

In Sb1 FCU’s case, the system was set up to prompt a series of about 10 future-dated activities with new members during the first three months of membership. Some examples include:

• new member kit,
• welcome e-mail,
• thank you notice,
• FICO score,
• month two follow-up letter,
• month three follow-up letter, and
• follow-up inquiry for products and services offering.

Sb1 FCU’s contact management system is also used to capture a “member profile,” which allows the credit union to learn more about each member by asking a series of questions ranging from “Why did you chose Sb1?” to “Would you be interested in a portfolio review with our financial advisor?”

The CU is averaging nearly 500 service requests each month related to the onboarding process.

The benefits of these activities are twofold:

1. Consistently staying in touch with new members develops strong relationships in the long run. The automated process helps the communication activities stay on track.

2. A series of structured questions can lead members to sign up for products and services the credit union offers. The products and services enrich individuals’ memberships, which, in turn, makes the credit union more valuable to them.

“Our goal was to find and incorporate a contact management system to improve our onboarding process,” says CUES member Tom Swierzy, CEO of Sb1 FCU. “We achieved that goal, discovering how memberWORKS can help drive our actions, be responsible, and ensure nothing falls through the cracks regarding communication with new members. That’s so important in the beginning of the member/credit union relationship.”

Swierzy adds that the system provides a structured process that fosters responsibility throughout the credit union. It not only sends out timed requests, it tracks them as well for accountability. So the request is either fulfilled or red-flagged for further review. Nothing goes unchecked.

“We believe this technology has really enhanced our member service–especially at the onboarding level,” he says. “It’s a huge advantage for us to plan these timed messages to new members, which lets them know we’re there for them. We’re not forgetting about them after they sign up. Just knowing that we are simply communicating with new members and nothing is falling through the cracks is very cool.”