Expectations in a humanized digital economy

Let me start by asking you to throw out your expectations of what you think this article might be about.

Why?

I don’t want you to get disappointed.

Ready? Let’s begin.

There are a few constants in life.

Physics.

Mathematics.

Disappointment.

While the first two may ultimately lead to the latter – just ask any high schooler who’s about to sit down for their finals – that’s not what I’m referring to.

At some point in our lives, we’ve been disappointed. More specifically, we’ve been let down by our financial institution.

Your social security number, along with millions of other individuals, has been compromised by hackers attacking your bank’s database. Your debit card took more than the usual “five to seven business days” to be sent to you. You receive an unexpected fee, that was spelled out in infinite detail in the updated “Terms of Service,” which was never refunded. Your payment did not go through and your cell phone was cut off.

But what ultimately leads to this disappointment?

“Unmet expectations,” my wife, a licensed professional counselor, states.

When we have this particular idea in our mind of how something should turn out, and when that something fails to measure up to what we thought it should be, we in turn are left with disappointment.

This setback is then followed by a series of rants on our social media channels because we feel we should inform the world of how we were unjustly treated.

Or we tell friends and family about the situation and how the credit union failed to live up to its standards. Think of this as the anti-referral program.

Now, this isn’t a piece to discuss the importance about being on social media channels to engage with consumers and correct wrongs and magically make them happy members with a simple tweet. There is a plethora of information on that already.

Instead, I wanted to focus on the expectations of consumers in a humanized digital economy.

A Personal Story about Expectations

A few months ago, my wife and I were looking to buy a house. Figuring this would be the perfect time to compare the mortgage processes at different financial institutions, I applied for a loan at a national bank, a private mortgage company, which was referred by my Realtor, and through a CUSO, which was referred by a family member.

Now I researched these financial institutions beforehand to see who would be the best fit for me and my future mortgage company. But for the most part, I kept my expectations low as, honestly, I just wanted to go with the flow.

After completing each of the applications, I received emails confirming my application was submitted. Some emails were more personalized than others. With the CUSO, I actually received three separate emails.

Email #1: The CUSO received my submitted application and were notifying me that it was assigned to a specific loan officer.

Email #2: The CUSO sent me login credentials for using their secure document transfer system.

Email #3: The loan officer assigned to my application emailed me next steps for the loan process.

During this time, I received a copy of my credit score through the mail as well as notification that my score had been pulled by the CUSO. Now my credit scores were not as high as I anticipated, which confused me. I emailed the loan officer at the CUSO to explain the situation and waited to hear back from them.

Please note that during this same time period, I was in communication with the loan officers from the other financial institutions, and their response times took no more than 24 hours per inquiry.

These quick response times helped establish the baseline for how quickly I should expect other loan officers should respond to inquiries.

Also, in the area my wife and I were looking to buy, desirable homes would be on the market for less than 24 hours before an offer was made and accepted. So if I needed something from my loan officer, quick turnaround time was necessary.

Having my expectations set from my experiences with the other loan officers, and the housing situation my wife and I were in, it was pretty frustrating to have the CUSO’s loan officer take four business days to follow up with my credit score inquiry.

The turnaround time, when compared to the other two companies, left something to be desired. And knowing how important quick communication was going to be in this particular housing market was something that was in the back of my mind.

Ultimately, we decided to not pursue getting a mortgage with the CUSO because I was disappointed with the way they handled the application process.

Setting Expectations from the Beginning and Mapping out Journeys

Let’s recall what causes disappointment: unmet expectations

In the humanized digital economy, set and manage expectations from the time a consumer engages with your credit union. This is exactly what Simple has done in this example from the point of conversion onward.

Setting clear expectations is just one reason why we recommend credit unions map out digital consumer journeys for account and loan application processes.

One way to begin this process is to simply observe and watch how members interact with your website, application and other digital services. But even before this, ask what their expectations are. And then once they have completed a particular process or action, ask if they feel you helped meet their expectations or if the digital experience fell short.

In the humanized digital economy, building digital marketing and lead generation systems is never complete as they can continuously be improved and optimized to better meet and exceed the expectations of consumers.

Consumer expectations will continue to shift as a direct result of evolving technologies, and credit unions must continue to evolve their systems and processes.

Now that we are at the end of this article, hopefully you’re expectations were met.

Actually, I hope they were exceeded.