Maintenance: Mastering the balancing act

OM.  I decided to start practicing yoga a while back. Calming the mind, stretching the body, and of course, working on that balance. 

Now, if you’ve ever tried to twist your legs one over another while squatting and lifting your hands to the sun at 6 AM with your cat running around wild, you know what I’m talking about. It’s not easy-peasy. 

Or maybe that ultra-specific example only applies to me. 

Let’s make things a bit more universal. Switch the yoga for technology and replace me with a financial institution attempting to perform routine maintenance. Oof. You’ve got a whole new can of unbalanced worms. 

Locked out.

Most core systems limit credit unions to an all-or-nothing approach when it comes to maintenance – as in all fields are accessible and therefore vulnerable to inadvertent edit, or everything’s in lock-down mode. Due to compliance risks, it’s often the latter. 

Branches face serious fines if information is changed that shouldn’t have been. As a result, employees can find themselves stalled, inundated with requests that can’t service themselves, while the members they are trying to support are in a perpetual state of annoyance.

According to Capgemini, nearly half of members experience conflict when attempting to update information with their financial institution, and 81 percent had every intention of relaying that negative experience via word of mouth. 

That’s a “yikes!” (Some calm, deep yoga breathing is looking really good right now, isn’t it?)

Free range.

Alright, I’ll give you a break on the heavy. Let’s look at how wonderful things can be with a system that gives employees the tools to handle requests and solve problems directly. 

(Humble Brag: These are Gartner’s numbers. CRMNEXT’s are much, much higher.)

• Employee productivity increases up to 20%
• Customer satisfaction increases 11%
• Customer effort decreases by 9%

You don’t really need to see stats to agree employees should have the ability to quickly and efficiently solve maintenance issues on the spot. So, give everyone access to everything; simple and done. Right?

Not so fast. 

Remember: balance.

Let’s just pretend you’ve given every employee access to every field in your system (Sounds like the Wild West.)  Now we all know mistakes are bound to happen. But what if that mistake directly affects the integrity of your data? Well, data issues relating to quality, access, or security can upset nearly every aspect of a credit union.

Let’s break that down categorically:

Risk and regulatory compliance

• Increased penalties and fines
• Credit assessment and investment risks 
• Higher compliance costs 

Business operations

• Reduced productivity
• Decreased throughput and longer processing times
• Increased rework to correct inaccuracies

Financial performance

• Increased operating costs and IT expense 
• Decreased revenue and cash flow delays
• Reduced business confidence and organizational trust

Back to balance.

Clearly, you can’t go around giving everyone access to everything, but you also can’t restrict things so much no one can help.  Sounds like a puzzle that can’t be solved. 

Lucky for you, the right CRM is your missing piece – and we might just be able to help.

To find the balance between accessibility and data security you need a CRM that allows easy access to required fields for routine member and account maintenance, but also has built-in guardrails for data governance and mitigation from the consequences of inaccurate entry.

So, when shopping for a CRM that is right for you, remember to look for one that was designed with employee empowerment and compliance in mind. And you’ll be able to master the balancing act, too.

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