Wescom Uses ECM Platform to Enhance Service, Operations

PASADENA, Calif. – Wescom Credit Union is relying on a sophisticated content management platform to help better perform that most elemental of credit union tasks: communicate effectively with members. The $2.6 billion CU is using FileNet Enterprise Content Management (ECM) to manage the approximately 3,100 surveys Wescom sends out each month to its 220,000 or so members. The surveys, sent electronically and by snail mail, ask the member about her or his satisfaction with service received through any of the various channels and products that Wescom offers, including branches, online banking, brokerage and real estate services, lending services and the call center. The system streamlines survey data input, enhancing the ability to respond quickly to member concerns, including routing the missives to key management members. Response times in some cases have been cut to hours from days. While first used for the surveys, the ECM platform in fact now is used through the big CU for a number of purposes, says Rob Guilford, Wescom’s senior vice president of information technology. “We use FileNet for the storage of all our official and corporate records, such as signature cards, all scanned documents and all records-retention requirements,” Guilford says. “We also are using FileNet for a number of other applications to incorporate the document workflow process. For example, we have used it to automate our CUDL indirect-lending system.” For members, however, the most apparent use may be with those surveys. Instead of responses being keyed into the tabulation system and, if necessary, forwarded to the right person, they now are scanned (if returned as paper) and automatically forwarded to the appropriate staffer, including about 100 to 150 a month that go to management members. The survey process team has seen sharp decreases in workload, such as only having to look at about half of the surveys, those that require manual intervention. The result has been measurable increases in member satisfaction, Guilford says, along with similar results in internal operations. “Our main objective in using FileNet, workflow and ECM solutions are to improve and enhance our productivity and efficiency levels throughout the organization, drive operating costs down and expand our processing capacity by more efficient and effective means,” the Wescom IT chief says. Wescom is one of more than 4,000 customers across a wide range of industries using some version of FileNet Corp. ECM software, says Michael Smaney, global industry marketing manager for financial services for the Costa Mesa-based company. He says about 30 of those are credit unions, most of which have deployed the software in-house as a lending and member-service enhancement solution. The main challenge in implementing the software involves people as much as technology, Smaney says. “In reality, the most difficult technical challenge with ECM is the internal change management that’s needed to get people to work in a paperless, exception-based environment,” he says. “Most software applications require users to review documents, key in data and verify the results. With ECM, the process, business rules and content are all managed by the technology. Paper is removed from the process and users are only focused on issues that arise from the process or business rules exceptions,” Smaney says. Guilford says training time for Wescom staffers preparing to use FileNet ECM was “minimal” and that there were no changes for operators or IT staff. As for the deployment itself, he says, “the FileNet workflow systems are fairly straight forward and easy to implement. “There were some challenges in setting up the survey documents to be scanned, read and tabulated to a SQL database, but once this was completed, the remaining workflow was developed and tested by our own development group and is maintained in-house.” Guilford adds: “From our perspective, enterprise content management is one of the cornerstones of our exceptional responsiveness to members.” -