3 Ways to Improve Member Service Efficiency

Efficiently staffing member service continues to be a top challenge for credit unions today. The caliber and convenience of interactions are increasingly critical factors when it comes to member loyalty, making it imperative that credit unions prioritize retention and engagement with their member service staff – those who are facilitating critical frontline interactions.

While the current employment climate varies geographically, staffing is still top of mind for many credit unions. According to a recent CSI survey, 34% of those surveyed consider employee turnover one of the top issues this year – only amplifying this mounting concern. Here are three key ways to help credit unions combat these challenges, better retain high-quality service staff, and deliver better member experiences:

1. Provide staff with the right interaction tools. Increased call volumes and complex member inquiries can be overwhelming for service professionals, especially when a credit union is short staffed. Legacy technologies and multiple disparate systems only exacerbate the problem, limiting the ability of service reps to provide quality support or even understand the context of a member interaction in its entirety across channels. Members starting with chat shouldn’t be forced to call in to continue service and start all over again if they hit a speed bump. Ensuring your interaction platform allows members to easily transition and resolve an issue in one continuous engagement both greatly improves member satisfaction and also drives greater staff efficiency.

Online collaboration tools, such as dual-cursor co-browsing, further accelerate resolution and help service reps quickly address member issues in real time. This ultimately makes their job more effective and rewarding. Employees are 87% less likely to leave their jobs with increased engagement, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. The right interaction tools can help service reps become more engaged, more strategic and perhaps most importantly, more successful, leading to a higher retention rate among staff and a better overall member experience.

2. Offer ongoing training and enable team collaboration. SurveyMonkey found that around 86% of surveyed employees cited job training as important to them. A unified interaction platform not only provides the right tools for staff to be more productive in their jobs, but also streamlines the training process from multiple point solutions within a disparate system to learning a single platform. It greatly reduces complexity and allows reps to focus more on member service.

It also can identify potential opportunities for further training or improvements. A unified reporting approach enables representatives to determine new ways to collaborate among service teams, and identifies strengths to rely upon for more efficient member service.

For example, representatives who successfully maintain low average handle times would be great at leading peer-to-peer coaching to train others, helping boost the skill set of the frontline. Credit unions could also review interaction data to provide tips and best practices for overcoming frequent pain points, delivering invaluable teachable moments for reps during member interactions.

In fact, 20% of service reps have quit their job because of the stress endured while dealing with frustrated members, making it even more vital to provide them with the right resources and training around these situations to feel better prepared – boosting morale on both sides of the interaction.

3. Incorporate AI to support – not replace – staff. Introducing chatbots to handle routine service inquiries decreases average wait times and can free up reps to handle higher return interactions. Virtual assistants can connect members to live agents when needed, driving efficiency, reducing resolution and lowering wait times. Better yet, this frees up a rep’s time for more meaningful and satisfying conversations. When staff are no longer needed for routine, redundant requests, they can instead focus on more strategic questions, like loan applications or new member support. And, AI-powered self-service means help is available 24/7, at the moment of need – an amplified service benefit that requires no extra lift, extended service hours or added staff.

Given the current economic volatility, credit unions are continuing to prioritize attracting and retaining high-quality member service representatives. With these three best practices in mind, credit unions will be able to more effectively empower staff and provide meaningful training, ultimately leading to boosted employee satisfaction, efficiency and retention.

John Fernandez is the SVP of Marketing at Glia, a New York, N.Y.-based provider of digital customer service solutions.