Improving the Member Experience Through M&A Activity
Having merged with three CUs in the past two years, WyHy FCU shares three technology-driven best practices.
“People helping people” is the driving philosophy for many credit unions, making the member experience a top priority. This becomes especially important during mergers and acquisitions. Whether it’s welcoming “new” members into the fold from an acquisition or maintaining great service for existing members through the high-volume period following a merger, a consistent experience is key to success. We’ve had some experience in this area at WyHy Federal Credit Union, having merged with three other credit unions over the past two years. We’ve identified three best practices to help maintain a strong member experience through M&A activity.
1. Add digital member service options, including collaboration features. We are seeing a growing preference among some members for digital-first options. Especially during peak call times, the ability to chat online, connect via video or even send an SMS message is convenient. You can expect call volumes to rise significantly right after an acquisition as members have questions about what the merger means for them personally. Allowing members to chat online for quick answers versus a longer wait on the phone helped maintain a positive experience while deflecting calls that would only add to the average wait time.
Many post-merger calls were simple inquiries, confirming that their credit union is now part of WyHy, for example, or asking for branch locations and hours. Some wanted to confirm their balance and yet others had more complex questions about online banking or how to transfer funds. Especially for more involved inquiries, leveraging a co-browsing tool helped the WyHy service team provide a great experience in helping members quickly get answers. A dual-cursor solution goes beyond screen sharing to enable our service team to actively guide members online, after they provide permission. This was very useful in helping new members learn how to look up their balance, for example, or quickly find the information they needed online.
2. Don’t just automate self-service, personalize it. Chatbots can be highly effective at both providing a self-service option during peak call times and also for after-hours support. But not all chatbots are created equal. Our first experience was with a solution that was unable to support more than 60 responses for general banking scenarios and couldn’t deliver member-specific details, such as helping members check their balance. These limitations didn’t meet member expectations and caused frustration, which only added to the challenges of a merger.
We looked at new automation options that provided more responses to answer a broader range of member questions, including member-specific inquiries. It was important to work with a vendor that understood the credit union space (we chose to work with Glia). We opted for a virtual assistant solution from the same platform vendor that offered more than 800 pre-trained responses tailored for a banking environment, allowing us to go well beyond the 60-response limit of the previous chatbot. Most importantly, our chatbot can now seamlessly connect members with a live representative during business hours. We’ve found that members who were initially skeptical of a chatbot have become regular users.
3. Seamlessly integrate the entire member interaction. It’s not enough to simply offer digital-first options and automation with a chatbot. Members want a seamless interaction. WyHy had a separate chat solution, chatbot and call center during the pandemic and while they were an improvement over phone-only service, they were part of a disparate system that was hard for members to navigate and challenging for WyHy to support and maintain. Reporting and planning were also issues, as we had to process and reconcile data from each disparate point solution.
Post-merger was when we really saw the benefit of a single platform that could manage all member interactions across every channel. The single-vendor solution has reduced the disruption that drives up abandonment and lowers satisfaction. The platform we adopted has allowed us to easily support every interaction that is not in-branch. We also chose a call center solution that was pre-integrated with the same vendor’s digital-first and chatbot solutions. As a result, members can start with a chatbot, transition to a live representative via chat and then further switch to audio or video. There is no need for members to dial in and start all over. Making the experience as effortless as possible greatly eased the transition as members from the merged institutions became WyHy members.
Mergers are already challenging enough for both members and the newly combined credit union team. Member service is perhaps the most critical element that has to be right in order for the merger to be successful. Digital-first solutions such as chat, video and SMS can deflect calls with highly effective online support. Chatbots can also deflect calls but the real ROI comes from integrating the digital solutions, automation and call center onto a single platform that not only makes it easy for the credit union to support, but also offers easy, seamless interactions that accelerate resolution and deliver a better member experience, even through a merger.
Eric Valla (left), Chief Information Officer & Tim Walters, Member Experience Manager WyHy Federal Credit Union Cheyenne, Wyo.