While consumers are turning to the digital channels as a starting point in their financial journey, a report by Forrester Research titled, "The State of North American Digital and Multichannel Banking" stated that 88% of digital bankers use two or more channels to interact with their bank. This multichannel behavior provides credit unions a tremendous opportunity to transform the role of a branch.

Today, few credit unions have built sales experiences to support how members move between channels in a financial interaction. The lack of multichannel capability has led to deteriorating sales force effectiveness and declining branch productivity.

Unless credit unions transform their operating model to meet how member use channels, their days are numbered.

There are three steps a credit union can take to transform their current operating model from an unintegrated multi-channel branch based approach to a multi-channel digital based approach.

Find the one Attribute

Consumers move through and shift channels at will. To be able to support a consumer as they switch channels, credit unions must build an integrated multichannel experience that supports all channels and all products.

To do that, credit unions need to map out the sales experience for all products, including service-level agreements and performance metrics. The process of mapping out the experience will capture the variation in sales processes by member segments. For example, the sales process is different for a home purchase versus a refinance.

Once members' experience is mapped, develop an integration and alignment plan that addresses multichannel technology, sales processes, employee goals and incentives, training and education and real-time analytics.

Build digital experiences

Most consumers begin researching a financial product through a digital channel, but when it comes to applying, they often switch to another channel.

According to a study by Accenture, the sales of mortgages through multichannel digital platforms increased by 75%, while single-channel branch sales dropped by 16%. Credit unions can increase sales by providing members unified access to tools, calculators and personalized content across multiple channels.

Give your employees tools

Finally, provide employees with the tools they need to help members move between channels. If members are using multiple channels to complete a transaction, provide your employees the ability to start an application, resume an application started in another channel, and complete a sale where a member touched one or many channels.

In addition, mobilize your branch employees by providing them with access to sales systems through a tablet, which can free them from the desk to go out and reach members in the community.

Transformation at the top

Transformation has to start with an unequivocal commitment and mandate from the business leaders. Leaders need to focus on changing the culture from one that has a branch mindset to one that is committed to deliver a consistent, unified experience to its members across channels.

That means aligning key performance metrics, goals, incentives, and analytics to support the multichannel member experience.

Meheriar Hasan is CEO of Terafina. He can be reached at (415) 234-0797 or [email protected].