03/13/2008

Superior service: the white lies we tell ourselves and our members.

By Tim McAlpine

I added a new blog category: Wet Blanket. Talking to the The CU Skeptic has rubbed off on me a little.

The unprovable claim of superior member service

Many credit unions hang their reputation and their brand on a claim of superior member service. Not only is this not a significant marketplace differentiator, in my experience, it is not necessarily true.

My experience

I have 100% of my personal and business banking with one of Canada's 10 largest credit unions. On the personal side, I have been with this credit union for over a decade. On the professional side, I moved my business account within the last two years from one of the big five Canadian banks to my credit union. I felt strongly that if Currency was going to work only with credit unions that we should do our business banking with a credit union.

Reality check

Eryn Fraser, our Director of Finance, works two-and-half-days a week. This means that at least once every two weeks, I visit the credit union to do the banking. I have been into the branch more than 50 times in the last two years, yet the front-line staff still don't know my name. Even though they have a seven-figure CRM system, they don't even try to fake-know me.

After I have made a deposit or paid some bills, the conversation typically goes like this: 

Tim says, "May I have my balance please?"

Jennifer or Terry says, "Are you a signer?"

Every 20 visits or so, throw me a bone with something like:

"Hey Tim, how's that credit union marketing thing going?"

Would that be so hard?

As I have made it abundantly clear on this blog, I have a personal connection with the credit union movement. Fundamentally, I don't like what huge banks stand for with their focus on driving shareholder profit above all else. However, the personal service that I received from my previous bank was actually superior to the service that I now receive from my credit union. A number of the bank tellers knew me by name and regularly asked me how my business was going and how my wife and kids where doing.

How can your credit union deliver on this superior service promise?

I have written a number of CU Branding 101 posts that describe in detail why your credit union needs to differentiate on more than service, but since so few credit unions are taking my advice, let's talk about this built-in credit union promise of superior service.

If your credit union is going to continue to proclaim that your people are your difference, your credit union needs to prove it. Everyday.

As your credit union grows, great service must be part of your organization's DNA. Great service must be a mandatory job requirement from every staff member. These simple steps would make a big difference to your members:

• Use members' names every chance you get. If your branch is small, your staff are probably already doing this. If your branch is big, use your CRM system to remind staff of the importance of taking a personal interest in members' lives.
   
• Educate your staff on the history of the credit union movement and the importance of superior member service. Your staff will respond—they want to believe in your organization and what it stands for.
   
• Respond to member communications pronto. This means e-mail and voicemail need to be returned within the hour.
   
• Answer your phone! This is simple, but so important.
   
• Acknowledge your members as they come in the door! You typically have a front desk with a greeter—have this person actually greet your members instead of avoiding eye contact!

Is my experience isolated? Is your credit union's service really superior?

P.S. I know Jennifer and Terry because they wear name tags. Maybe I should get one!

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01/09/2008

Shout Out: Great Credit Union Times article today on lack of member growth.

By Tim McAlpine

Study Indicates Community Charters Don’t Solve CU Growth Challenges

I read this article written by By Eileen Courter with interest. Mark Weber from Weber Marketing provides most of the content and he offers some terrific, straight-forward advice that credit union marketers should pay attention to.

Mark Weber says, "If good service were the secret, credit unions would be thriving in membership growth today," he continues. "Unfortunately, good service is not the bar by which people switch financial institutions. We've had seven years of the worst growth in history in credit union membership. You absolutely have to be working much, much harder than simply saying 'We have great member service' when everyone else is saying it." Weber notes that even though some 20% of credit unions now have a community charter, the vast majority are not growing. "There are two big surprises when a credit union gains a community charter," Weber says. "First, absolutely nobody is beating a path to your door. No. 2, you have to completely transform your business, operational, and sales models."

+ Take a read—more food for thought.

It all points back to the real need for your credit union to be different and desirable.

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01/03/2008

CU Branding 101: For teachers and anyone who has ever had one.

By Tim McAlpine

A recent post on Robbie Wright's Life and Times of a CU Employee blog raised a completely separate issue for me. And it irks me whenever I see it.

Read all of the messaging on this website home page and see if you can see my pet peeve.

There is a huge disconnect between the built-in brand position set in the credit union name (Queensland Teachers' Credit Union Limited) and the tagline that attempts to reverse that built-in positioning (for teachers and anyone who has ever had one). How can you appeal to absolutely everyone with a name that is meant to appeal to a chosen few?

The very clear name states that this is a credit union specifically formed to serve teachers who live in Queensland. This is a crystal clear position that differentiates this credit union from all of its competitors.

I speculate that somewhere in the credit union's history the leadership and board determined that the credit union needed to grow in order to survive.

Two ways to grow:

1. Become more relevant to your original field of membership
2. Expand the credit union's field of membership

Before you even consider option 2, you need to exhaust the potential of option 1. Work to have your credit union resonate with the majority of your field of membership and entice your non-members within that field to become members and participate by offering unique products and services that are actually built for their unique needs. After studying the website, I do applaud Queensland Teachers' for having a dedicated tab and a number of great products just for teachers.

If you do go for option 2, you have to go all the way. You need to change your name and build a compelling brand position. Slapping on a new, completely open-ended tagline will not get the results you envisioned when you opened your bond. A brand position must be clear and avoid confusion.

Also, don't even get me started on the acronym solution. It may be easy to go with QTCU, but acronyms are cold, emotionless and easily forgotten.

The golden carrot of an unlimited position never performs like imagined. The problem with trying to appeal to everyone is you actually appeal to no one. And if you do attempt to appeal to everyone, at least avoid confusion in your name and tagline. It's never a great strategy to weaken your unique brand position to the point of confusion.

P.S. If you found this unusually harsh for my blog posts, I apologize. This is a huge pet peeve of mine.

It is not my practice to dump on credit union marketing and branding. I think we are all in this together and there are enough blogs that throw out negative energy just to generate traffic and comments. I am using Queensland Teachers' Credit Union Limited as an example to help illustrate a point that applies to credit unions in transition from closed bond (limited fields of membership) to open bond (community charter fields).

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12/27/2007

CU Branding 101: Could your credit union cause a freakout?

By Tim McAlpine

In our CU Branding 101 series, I have expressed my opinion that credit unions are undifferentiated. To add to the confusion, there are actually three levels of undifferentiated consumer-facing credit union brands you as a credit union marketer have to deal with!

1. The category: The credit union movement brand
2. The organization: Your credit union brand
3. The offer: Your product and service brands

Let's look at the impact that each level has on your credit union.

The credit union movement brand

After more than a century there is still a lot of misunderstanding about what a credit union is, what makes a credit union different and why that difference matters.

When we ask the general public to describe what a credit union is, we get responses that range from a shrug to credit unions are like banks, only smaller. A small percentage of folks will indicate one or two of the following: cooperative, member owned, involved in the community, great service, local decision making, friendly people, not-for-profit, too small, employer sponsored, exclusive and less sophisticated than banks.

To those that do understand what a credit union is, the credit union movement brand does have an impact on your credit union brand. The credit union movement brand creates a pre-disposition to be open to or closed to what your credit union has to offer. That is it. Nothing more, nothing less.

Your credit union brand

If most people don't understand what makes a credit union different from a bank, even less people understand what makes your credit union different from another credit union down the street.

In a competitive environment, your credit union not only needs to be perceived as different than the banks, it also has to be different from other credit unions in your marketplace. The little known category differentiators go out the window when folks are asked to identify what the difference is between competing credit unions.

Your product and service brands

And finally, if people don't understand what makes a credit union different from a bank and what makes your credit union different from the credit union down the street, then they really don't understand what makes your credit union's products and services different from everyone else's.

That's because credit union product and services aren't significantly different. This is why the financial services industry has been reduced to a commodity where most decisions are based solely on price.

With so little understanding, at what level should credit unions invest in brand building and marketing?

1. The category. Should we promote the credit union movement brand? No. Let's skip category differentiation. The credit union difference just isn't different enough to throw millions of dollars at. After 100 years, either people get the difference or they don't.
    
   In the US, there is a heated debate going on about whether to mount a national credit union brand awareness campaign. Here is a link to a CUNA Marketing and Business Development white paper on the subject and a great post and comment string on Open Source CU to give you more background.
    
   Judging by provincial and state credit union promotions, credit unions can't decide on one compelling difference to promote consistently. There is no 'Got Milk' campaign waiting to be discovered. And to be frank, promoting nationwide ATM access doesn't exactly excite the masses.
    
   Again, remember that the only thing that branding and marketing at the category level is capable of is create a pre-disposition for against considering a credit union. Almost no sales or membership growth will come out of marketing and branding activity at the category level.
    
2. The organization. Should you promote your credit union brand? Yes, you should discover and articulate your credit union brand internally and live and breathe your brand externally. Every employee and member needs to know what makes your credit union special.
    
   No, you should not mount a brand awareness campaign to promote your difference. Brand-only advertising for a credit union is a waste of money. Again, almost no sales or membership growth will come out of marketing and branding activity at the organization level.
    
3. The offer. Should you promote your products and services? Yes, but only after you have defined a unique brand strategy and everyone in your organization understands what makes your credit union different from every other competing bank and credit union in your marketplace.
    
   This is the time to create unique and desirable products and services that support your brand and that fill a hole in your marketplace. Only through a complete market analysis and brand strategy process can real product innovation emerge.
    
   The offer is where the rubber meets the road. In our experience, the greatest benefits come from promoting a highly differentiated product or service. In doing so, you are promoting the offer and your organization—the two brand levels which matter most to your credit union. Sales and membership growth happen when you invest in marketing and branding activity at the offer level.

A real world example to prove my point

When we ask credit union marketers to list brands that matter, Apple is always included in the list. Think about this. Apple does not promote the category or the organization, Apple promotes its offers: the Mac, iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, iTunes, iLife, Mac OSX and Final Cut Pro to name a few. Through product innovation and consumers' experience with Apple's products (the offer), the Apple brand is built and propelled forward. The offer is where the money is made and the brand is built.

Back to the title of the post: Could your credit union cause a freakout?

Below is a video that is part of a new Burger King promotion, "The Whopper Freakout."

1. The category: Fast food
2. The organization: Burger King
3. The offer: The Whopper

Watch this video and then ask yourself, does your credit union have an offer on its menu that members are so passionate about that, if removed, would cause a massive freakout? Does your credit union have the equivalent of a Burger King Whopper?

Boy, that was a long post to prove a simple point. Offer great products and services and the rest will take care of itself.

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10/29/2007

Scary big idea 1: Affinity positioning for credit unions.

By Tim McAlpine

This is a new category: scary big ideas. I was going to call it "wild ideas that credit unions will never go for, but should, because these ideas, if executed with courage and commitment, would really fly" but it was too long and wouldn't fit in the category menu.

Think of this new category as a fringe third-year course taught by an eccentric that doesn't have very many students.

Some background on this scary big idea

There is a general consensus that credit unions need to be bigger and need to have an unlimited field of membership to compete. So the once tightly defined fields of membership have given way to the new looser, we-are-open-to-everyone fields of membership.

For many credit unions that have made this jump, there is a sense of surprise and wonder that this new openness has not yielded hoards of new members flocking in to open new accounts and move their mortgages.

So, the next conclusion drawn is to offer better rates, free chequing accounts and free George Foreman grills to compete in these highly competitive multi-credit union markets.

What if there was another answer?

What if the decision to become more open was flawed? What if when an original field of membership is deemed to be irrelevant and unsustainable, we redefined an equally tight, but more relevant field of membership?

What if we defined our fields of membership by affinity?

Here are some dictionary definitions for affinity:

1. A close connection marked by community of interests or similarity in nature or character.
2. A natural attraction or feeling of kinship.
3. A natural liking for or attraction to a person, thing or idea.
4. A person, thing or idea for which such a natural liking or attraction is felt.

When I think of large groups of employees or even neighbours, there is very little shared affinity. The relationships we have with our coworkers and neighbours are not based on shared passion, they are based on mere acquaintance: "Hey Bob, how was your weekend?" "Fine, Dave, how was your weekend?" "Fine."

Huh? What the heck am I talking about? 

Put all of the "it will never happen" thoughts that are racing through you mind aside and think like the CEO of a start-up for a second. If you opened a new credit union today with no members, how would you go about building your business from nothing? This new credit union would have be highly differentiated with a story so compelling that a select group of very passionate early adopters would promote it for you. Your new credit union would need to build around shared affinity.

Here are some ideas for narrow affinity based fields of membership

1. Ladies-Only Credit Union. Tony Mannor had a discussion going on his CU Hype blog about a credit union based entirely on pink targeting women. This is the type of idea that I am talking about here. However, Tony also suggested "to co-brand a secondary colour like chocolate brown or black to appeal to men." This is exactly what I am not talking about here. You have to deliberately limit your field of membership to appeal to an affinity group. To make our Ladies-Only Credit Union really fly, we could donate 20% of operating profits to fight breast cancer. Wouldn't you take a possible target of 50% of the population?
    
2. Golfers' Credit Union. Imagine a credit union only open to golfers? Golf vacation loans. A roaming PGA golf pro on staff available for free lessons. Branches with a club-fitting corner. A rewards program based entirely on golf including vacations, clubs, attire and green fees. ATMs located at golf and country clubs. Member tournaments. The ideas are endless. Golfers are affluent and the word of mouth promotion would be incredible.
    
3. Bloggers' Credit Union. Members would have to a have an active blog or podcast. With Technorati ranking more than 10 million active blogs, there are more than enough bloggers to float a credit union. Get a few on side and let the viral nature of the social web take care of new member acquisition. Add in members of MySpace, Facebook or YouTube if just bloggers is too limiting for you.
    
4. Emo Credit Union. OK, maybe this is a little narrow (or weird), but music fans have undeniable shared affinity. Rewards could include music memorabilia, concert tickets and back-stage passes. (I stole the emo idea from Brent Dixon and Charlie Trotter).
    
5. Vegetarians' Credit Union. Motorcyclists' Credit Union. Adventurists' Credit Union. Naturalists' Credit Union. Parents' Credit Union. Little Peoples' Credit Union. Dog Owners' Credit Union. Save the Earth Credit Union. Nudists' Credit Union.

I could go on and on. My point is that affinity has incredible power, more so than shared geography, shared demographics or a shared employer and affinity has nothing to do with the highest or lowest rates. You products and services would simply have to be competitive, not earth shattering.

Before you cast this crazy idea aside, consider the affinity and passion that Harley Davidson owners share. Or the affinity and passion that Apple computer owners share. Affinity could be the next killer app for credit unions.

Or, you can tell the eccentric teacher to put a sock in it! What do you think?

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10/13/2007

CU Branding 101: How does the average credit unions rate against the 22 immutable laws of branding?

By Tim McAlpine

In 1998, Al Ries and Laura Ries penned The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding. It is a great follow up to Al Ries and Jack Trout's 1981 book Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind.

The concepts and ideas presented in these two books form the underlying principles practiced by today's leading brand experts.

Some will argue that there are exceptions to these rules and believe that nothing is immutable, meaning 'not subject to or susceptible to change.' However, for the purposes of this blog post, let's believe them at face value and measure the typical credit union brand against 12 of these widely accepted laws. I eliminated 10 of the laws for this discussion to keep this relatively short

I'll use a scale between 1 to 5 for a possible total of 60 points.

1. The Law of Expansion: The power of a brand is inversely proportional to its scope.
    
   • Most credit unions try to be all things to all people which ultimately undermines the power of their brand.
   • Average credit union's score: 2
      
2. The Law of Contraction: A brand becomes stronger when you narrow its focus.
    
   
   • By narrowing the focus, a brand can achieve extraordinary success. However, most credit unions are spreading themselves too thin as they expand their services and field of membership.
   • Average credit union's score: 1
      
3. The Law of Publicity: The reputation of a brand is achieved with publicity, not advertising.
    
   
   • A brand must be capable of generating favourable publicity in the media or it won't have a chance of standing out in the marketplace. Most credit unions simply aren't newsworthy.
   • Average credit union's score: 2
        
4. The Law of Advertising: Once born, a brand needs advertising to stay healthy.
    
   
   • Credit unions are outspent tenfold by the big banks. And to add insult to injury, these big banks are saying the same things: full service, friendly and accessible.
   • Average credit union's score: 2
     
    
5. The Law of the Word: A brand should strive to own a word in the mind of the consumer.
    
   
   • If you want to build a brand, you must focus your branding efforts on owning a word in the prospect's mind. A word that nobody else owns. Kleenex owns "tissue," Fedex owns "overnight," Volvo owns "safety." What are most credit unions trying to own? "Banking?"
   • Average credit union's score: 1
    
6. The Law of Credentials: The crucial ingredient in the success of any brand is its claim to authenticity.
    
   
   • Coke is the real thing in the minds of many. Finally a category where I won't be hard on you! Credit unions rate highly in trust and authenticity.
   • Average credit union's score: 4
    
7. The Law of Quality: Quality is important, but brands are not built by quality alone.
    
   
   • Does a Rolex keep better time than a Timex? Are you sure? The perception of quality, more than quality itself, is what builds a brand. The problem with a homogenous industry like financial services is that every brand's quality is perceived as equal.
   • Average credit union score: 3 
    
8. The Law of Fellowship: In order to build the category, a brand should welcome other brands.
   
   
   • Credit unions have taken this to heart! There are certainly enough credit union brands competing against one another. The curious fact remains though: the average consumer has a difficult time differentiating banks from credit unions.
   • Average credit union score: 3
    
9. The Law of the Generic: One of the fastest routes to failure is giving a brand a generic name.
    
   
   • The problem with a generic brand name is its inability to differentiate the brand from the competition. Many credit unions are going through mergers and renaming. They are leaving highly positioned, 50-year-old city or employer names. In their place, they are opting for generic or abstract names or acronyms. Will any of these generic brands break into the mind and become a major brand? Unlikely.
   • Average credit union score: 2
    
10. The Law of Colour: A brand should use a colour that is the opposite of its major competitor.
     
    
    • This rule is particularly hard to follow in the financial services industry with most credit unions having more than 10 bank, credit union ad alternative institution competitors. We need more colours!
    • Average credit union score: 2
     
11. The Law of Consistency: A brand is not built overnight.
     
    
    • Success is measured in decades, not years. This is the law which is violated most frequently. Once a credit union occupies a position in the mind, many credit union marketers thinks of reasons to change. Markets may change, but brands shouldn't.
    • Average credit union score: 2 
     
12. The Law of Singularity: The most important aspect of a brand is its single-mindedness.
     
    
    • What is a brand? A singular idea or concept that you own inside the mind of the prospect. It's as simple or as difficult as that. With most credit unions offering a myriad of undifferentiated products and services, this law is broken all the time.
    • Average credit union score: 1

By my non-scientific count, the average credit union scores 25 out of 60 (42%). This is an F. I think we have some work to do! If you actually read this far, aren't you glad I only included 12 of the laws?

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09/22/2007

CU Branding 101: Your credit union is not differentiated.

By Tim McAlpine

This is my second CU Branding 101 post. If you didn't read the first, here's a link. Don't worry, this post will wait until you get back!

OK, so you get the gist. My fundamental belief is that credit unions need to be differentiated to succeed long term, yet almost all credit unions are not significantly differentiated. To illustrated my point, let me contrast the financial services industry with the television industry.

Fifty years ago, there were only three channels to choose from.

Occupying a unique position in consumers' minds was easy. As long as you filled the schedule with a variety of programs, you were guaranteed to have an audience and a full roster of advertisers.

Fast-forward to today and there are dozens of stations to choose from. By necessity, new stations are differentiated to attract an audience and advertisers. The difference between every station is obvious.

Most stations have a descriptive name and a defined niche they are seeking to connect with. Just think of The History Channel, Much Music, The Golf Channel, SportsNet, The Shopping Channel and Court TV to name a few.

To contrast, this is how the financial services industry looks from the consumers' point of view. There are dozens of brands that essentially look like the big banks that established the marketplace. Each going after the same target with essentially the same story and offering. The differences are so subtle and are not compelling.

If you don't believe me, ask your spouse, kids or neighbours to describe the difference between 10 financial institutions.

Think about how well positioned TV stations are in comparison. TV stations have the added bonus of being able to promote their offerings on other channels, in TV Guide and in the local daily newspaper. Also, let's not forget that consumers can access every choice from the couch!

Here's the irony. As competition has intensified, credit unions have moved away from the things that naturally made them different. 

• Serving employee groups and small regions to now serving larger geographic regions and broader fields of membership.
   
• Using city or employer names to now using acronyms and generic aspirational names.

These shifts have been done to appeal to larger groups of people. However, as more credit unions compete against one another and more alternative players enter the scene, all institutions are looking and feeling the same.

To make matters worse, consumer can't easily sample financial products and services.

Owning a differentiated position has become crucial. Your position has to be so differentiated and compelling to even get noticed. And by the way, being community oriented, member owned and providing better service is not a differentiated position.

These principles may seem obvious, yet most credit union leaders are afraid to position their organizations for fear of limiting their credit union's potential.

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09/09/2007

CU Branding 101: What do we believe about credit union brands?

By Tim McAlpine

Since we call our blog the CU Brand Blog, I feel I should do a few posts on Currency's credit union brand beliefs and branding process. I'll title and tag these posts 'CU Branding 101.'

Before I get into some real meat in future posts, let me communicate 10 of our basic beliefs about branding for credit unions:

1. Successful credit union branding is about revealing and promoting an easily understood, authentic difference over an extended period of time.
    
2. A successful credit union brand must be fundamentally differentiated from competitive offerings.
    
3. Your credit union's difference must be extremely compelling to a defined group of people.
    
4. A credit union's products and services are inherently not different than any of their competitors. Therefore creating a unique brand for a credit union is harder than doing so for almost any other type of organization.
    
5. Your credit union simply doing something better does not make it different. I recently read a post by Jeff Stephens on his The Story blog that articulates and supports this notion.
    
6. Expanding your credit union's geographic footprint and broadening its field of membership makes your brand less compelling. It may defy logic, but the bigger your credit union gets the more differentiated it must be.
    
7. A new name is not a silver bullet for success. There are many reasons to change your credit union's name, but don't be led to believe that a new name will miraculously have new members running through the doors. A new name must be backed by a highly differentiated brand strategy. It can take years for your new name to surpass the brand equity you had in your original name.
    
8. The built-in credit union difference is no longer readily understood and even when it is understood it is not compelling. Essentially, being local, community minded and member owned are all great, but on their own they no longer compel prospective members to action.
    
9. Building a differentiated credit union brand requires a special process. Not to knock our competition, but when a generalist marketing and branding agency employs its brand-building process to a credit union it does not come out with a differentiated brand. These processes are meant to extract what makes a brand different, but the problem is all credit unions are basically the same. We believe that a credit union must actually decide on their difference, make fundamental changes to support that decision and grow into their brand over time.
    
10. Despite the first nine points, we believe building a successful, differentiated credit union brand is not only possible, but can be a lot of fun in the process.

This post sets the stage for upcoming CU Branding 101 posts. My intent is to unseat some long-held beliefs on credit union branding and push credit unions to step up and identify and claim their difference.

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