How many ways are there to use member feedback? At the risk of being cheeky, that depends on the kind of feedback you get.

Still, without getting into specifics, there are a few overarching themes about how to leverage survey information. Let’s look at how member feedback can move your credit union in the right direction.

How to Use Member Feedback at Your Credit Union

The following list ignores specific and individual requests.

Obviously, if you get feedback requesting a change in call center hold music (or in-branch jams), you could change some tunes. Or if members ask for more social media content about employee dogs, you might feature more staff pets.

But not all feedback will be specific or immediately useful. Moreover, most of it will come in the form of survey responses rather than written requests. With that in mind, here are six ways to use broad member feedback and survey data.

1.    Establish baselines

Measure member feedback at every touchpoint and establish baselines. Use these baselines to measure the efficacy of future changes.

For example, let’s say that feedback about branch visits is mediocre, so you add another teller to reduce wait times. After adding the teller, see if your new score has improved over the baseline. If it has, you’ve taken a step in the right direction! If it hasn’t, then it’s back to the drawing board.

2.    Predict needs and trends

After you’ve established baseline metrics for member experience, you can use those measurements to better understand member needs—and the trends they reflect.

For example, if your metrics for mobile banking slip, you can start looking for issues. Does your app use biometrics for convenience? Can users freeze debit and credit cards? Can they manage recurring payments?

3.    Identify key engagement and experience drivers

As you survey, pay attention to your strong suits. Do people love your onboarding process? Do they think your tellers should win awards? Is there a buzz about your mobile app?

Knowing your strengths gives you advantages and marketing opportunities. Knowing drivers of engagement allows you to play to those strengths (and find more marketing advantages).

4.    Understand member segments

Members can be segmented in countless ways. By age, by income, by engagement, and so on. But how well do you understand these members segments?

Data analytics give you all the data you need to make great decisions. But although they can show you what to do, they can’t explain why. Only deeper insight into your members’ motivations can do that.

Surveys and direct member feedback ensure that your decisions—present and future—have the benefit of truly understanding your members in each segment.

5.    Optimize member acquisition strategies

It costs a lot of money to acquire new members. Anything you can do to lower those costs really helps your bottom line.

One way to lower acquisition costs is to understand your marketing edge. What do your existing members love about you? What drew your new members to you? Surveys can identify your draw—and ensure you emphasize your most effective member acquisition strategies.

6.    Improve member retention

After everything you spend to acquire a member, it would be a real shame to lose them after six months. Surveys also help with member retention strategies.

It all comes down to knowing what your members want (and what they like). First, the information shows you how to create a credit union your members love. Just as importantly, live surveys alert your team automatically when you receive a low survey score, giving you a chance to right a wrong—immediately after it happens.

Final Thoughts

So yes, there are countless ways to use member feedback at your credit union. But most of those ways will fall under one of the above umbrellas.

If your credit union wants to get in touch with its members—and their needs—you might want to get started with a simple NPS survey.

We provide a free NPS for credit unions if you’d like to get started.