Good e-commerce beats great local service every time

 By Tim McAlpine

A recent chain of events reminded me that dealing with a good self-service, e-commerce website can be so much better than dealing with good-hearted, human beings that offer great customer service. Let me tell you my little story.

On July 28, I went to turn on our TV and heard the lamp pop. Our TV is a Samsung DLP rear projection unit purchased about five years ago. At the time, a plasma screen was north of five grand and out of our budget. My first instinct was to jump in the car and go to Costco or Best Buy and replace the TV, but my wife (the more practical one) convinced me to just replace the lamp.

First stop, the electronics store where I purchased the TV. "Sorry sir, we no longer carry that style of TV and we can't order the lamps either." I went home, did a quick search online, found compatible lamps on eBay and other sources. But my former Chilliwack Chamber of Commerce President voice in the back of head said, "You should try to shop local." A call to another locally owned electronics store yielded success, or so I thought.

On August 10, after returning from our summer vacation, I checked in with the store. The good hearted, polite clerk checked his records, but couldn't find any record of the order. "Call back tomorrow, 'Mike' will be back."

I went back and forth for a month. All the while being given friendly, prompt attention. Great customer service but lacking a great product.

"Sorry, the lamp is backordered."

"Sorry Mr. McAlpine, we've tried another supplier and they are looking at another source."

All with a smile and a good heart.

After missing the Olympics, I decided I wasn't going to miss the premier episodes of a few of my favourite shows, so I went online again five days ago, clicked on the top link, got a trustworthy looking website, entered the product code, entered my credit card info and my TV is now working. I called the local shop, got my credit card deposit back and now have an extra $100 in my pocket.

Questions raised relevant to credit unions

• Are credit unions kidding themselves with the local, actual people, better service myth?
• If the perceived switching inconvenience factor was removed, would your credit union members hang around?
• Once there is no need for branch visits for things like signature cards and forms, why should members care about the local credit union?
• Is your credit union's e-commerce up to snuff?
• What is your credit union doing so much better than the other options out there that your members would never consider moving?
• How are you raising your products and services above commodity level and building member loyalty?

Granted, my TV story might not be the best example of great customer service, but it did get me thinking.

Bad practice: your credit union should not send form letters in tough situations

By Tim McAlpine

As a companion to the new good practices blog category, I also have a new bad practices category. If I see something that every credit union should NOT do, I'll call it out. I won't name the credit union though.

Bad practice: Send your valued mortgage holders a form letter to inform them that their agreed-upon mortgage rate has increased. In this case, the credit union (my credit union) decided that it needed to increase all variable-rate mortgages that were tied to prime rate by 0.25 to 0.50%. It served notice in the form of a confusing notice-of-change document sent by mail.

My advice. If your balance sheet position requires you to make a huge decision that affects thousands of members, use some tact and call every single affected member and talk them through the reasons that you are making this very tough decision. Show your loyal members that you actually care—don't send out an official notice that leans on the fine print in the mortage agreement.

Now that's a bad practice that will give credit unions a bad name.

Got a bad practice that needs to be outed? Send your example to tmcalpine at currencymarketing dot ca. I'll keep your name and the credit union's name out of it. Let's wipe out bad practices that tarnish the credit union movement's brand.

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