Are you giving member loyalty the attention it deserves?

Over time, loyalty has become a central priority among credit unions. We’ve embraced our role as people-centric institutions and devoted resources to exceeding member expectations so that they’ll keep coming back.

And it’s paying off.

Today, nearly 60% of members consider their credit unions to be their primary financial institutions (PFIs), up considerably from 42% in 2009. Banks, on the other hand, have seen a decline from 56% in 2009 to 38% in 2013. Efforts like Bank Transfer Day have brought more attention to the benefits of credit union membership, helping credit unions open millions of checking accounts and improve their PFI status over the last few years.

So, credit unions are gaining trust while banks are working to recover it, but is increased member loyalty paying off for your credit union?

For starters, the average credit union loan balance of highly loyal members is about $2,000 more than the average loan balance of less-loyal members (excluding first mortgage loan balances). That’s part of the “immediate payoff” – your loyal members will come to you when financial needs arise, accessing more of your products and services than your non-loyal members.

In fact, when members were asked whether or not they would contact their credit union for their next financial need, 50% said definitely; 34% probably would; and only 8% said probably not. Credit union members who consider themselves “highly loyal” are nearly twice as likely to go to their credit union for checking, online banking, mobile banking, home equity (or a second-mortgage loan) and first mortgage loans.

But there’s also the less obvious, long-term payoff; members who consider themselves loyal and love your credit union are going to spread the word, singing your praises through social media and face-to-face interactions. They become better advocates.

For example, more than half of all credit union members said they were “extremely likely” to recommend their credit union to others and almost all of those who also use banks are more likely to recommend their credit unions than their banks. Among the “highly loyal” group, all 100% said they are extremely likely to recommend their credit unions. This falls to about 40% for less-loyal members.

Turn members into brand advocates

Because every member you win over essentially becomes a free marketing node in your community, loyalty is one of credit unions’ most potent responses to the profit-driven structure of big banks – one that you should embrace.

Using member survey results in comparison to a national database, CUNA’s research team has been shedding light on how loyalty is helping individual credit unions in unforeseen ways and how it’s being underutilized. With CUNA member research, you can assess the important facets of your credit union’s member loyalty, such as credit union image, pre-existing loyalty levels, how you compare to the rest of the movement and improvements that members would like to see made.

Customizing their research to pursue your goals, you can find the right fit of member surveys and target markets to see what having more “high loyalty” members would mean for your credit union and how to acquire them, so that your loyalty-centric efforts can continue to pay off.

Find out more and view a complete list of available surveys at cuna.org/marketresearch.

*Statistics provided by the CUNA research team.