During a recent meeting with our credit union managers, I showed this picture and asked them to get creative and tell me what was going on in this scene. We had some great responses.
One person put themselves in the picture and imagined a serene place to retire.
Others told a story of a farmer getting to bed after a long day of hard work.
Another said the bedroom light was turning on as they got ready for a new day.
I asked the team to then dig a little deeper and tell me about who lives here. What are their hopes and dreams? What keeps them up at night? And what is their financial situation?
Some of our staff could identify with what it was like to live in a place like this because they had lived it. Others had family members or friends that came to mind as a reference. And many of us used depictions from movies and books of this similar scenario to write our story of what life is like for these individuals.
We then used this as an opportunity to talk about empathy. For some reason, empathy has become a hot topic these days. You may have heard Elon Musk telling Joe Rogan that, “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.” Will Guidara, Restauranteur and author of Unreasonable Hospitality, counters that by saying, “empathy is the greatest superpower one can have.”
So, which one is it? A liability or a superpower? For credit unions, the answer matters more than you might think.
We went on to talk about the role that listening plays in empathy.
As an example, years ago we had more connection with each of our credit union members. When banking was done mostly in-person, we got to know our members, along with their unique challenges and needs. At a credit union that serves educators, the CEO at one point heard that new teachers moving to town for a job often didn’t have money for a place to stay. So, the CEO acted by working with the school district to allow new teachers to use their employment contract and get a low-interest loan to put a deposit on an apartment or get a hotel room until they got settled. That’s empathy in action.
We have the benefit of technology that no longer requires members to do every transaction in person. For most members, this is a great thing. It saves time and can be much more convenient. In place of personal interactions with each member, we now rely on data to get to know most of our members.
Data is powerful. We use it every day to approve loans, open new accounts, and fight fraud. We use it in marketing or in decisions to open new branches. It can be a great tool, but when we rely on it too heavily, we risk replacing understanding with assumptions.
Here are a few examples I saw recently on social media from outside of the credit union industry. One landlord claimed that he would turn down potential renters if they texted him and a green text bubble came up. To him, Android users indicated a higher risk that they would skip rent payments. Another post from a financial influencer didn’t name names but claimed that some financial institutions use data from your phone at the time you apply for a loan. They mentioned that if your battery was at a low percentage or if you applied for the loan at 2am, that would be used to deny your loan.
Whether true or not, these types of stories get thousands of views and erode trust in financial institutions and other corporations. It’s no wonder we have seen several advertisements lately from companies apologizing for not listening. Frito-Lay faced backlash for increasing prices for chips too much and has tried to win back customers. Burger King launched an ad campaign with their CEO talking about how they had lost their way. Even Chase Bank has a new commercial promoting their new branches that says, “Instead of building new ways for machines to talk to people, Chase is building new places for people to talk to people.”
Empathy, and the willingness to truly listen, has always been a superpower for credit unions. As technology continues to evolve, our challenge isn’t to use less data, but to stay intentional about the humans behind the data. The more sophisticated our tools become, the more valuable it is to simply understand the person on the other side.
