Is Your Credit Union or Bank Under the Dome?

One of our family’s guilty pleasures this summer has been watching the miniseries Under the Dome. We certainly aren’t Stephen King fans (never read one of his books) and usually don’t watch much television. But it’s summer and it’s a guilty pleasure.

The show’s basic premise is that a dome encircles a small New England town, completely blocking the outside world. Nothing gets in; nothing gets out. You can see those on the outside but can’t communicate with him (they can’t hear you and you can’t hear them).

Is that what it’s like at your credit union or bank when it comes to your strategy and branding? In other words, are you trying to communicate with consumers and they can’t hear you?

It may be because you are under the dome. Or more precisely, you may have put a dome around your credit union or bank.

We eat, live and breathe financial services. Checking accounts. Loans. Deposits. Investments. Consumers don’t think like that. They live outside our domes. The reality is we need to start thinking less like credit union and banking executives and more like consumers. We need to get out of our dome.

So how do you get out of your dome? Here are few suggestions:

(1) Talk to consumers—We don’t have all the answers (but our members and customers do). By “talking” I’m not referring to focus groups. Just sit down with a few consumers over a cup of coffee and ask them what’s important to them in banking, where they do their business and why.

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