Remember the Member Voice

Josh Allison, Think Café Consulting

Are you leveraging the collective voice of your membership? Credit unions have historically hung their hat on the idea of member-ownership and a volunteer board of directors. This unique corporate structure has allowed the CEO and senior management team the ability to listen to the member voice through the volunteer board of directors.

With the rise of consumers who are connected to each other and to brands, a trend is emerging with forward thinking companies to partner, listen and co-create content and products with and alongside their customers. This is known as open innovation or co-creativity, and it’s a great opportunity for credit unions to leverage the corporate structure they already have in place to better serve current and potential members.

Here is a short list of companies that have embraced this mindset in an attempt to better listen to and partner with their customers: Starbucks, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Unilever and P&G.

Here are a few examples of what they’ve done:

  • Starbucks – Starbucks is leveraging their consumer community to better the Starbucks product and experience. Through their successful http://mystarbucksidea.force.com/ website, they are collecting information, engaging Starbucks consumers and ultimately listening to those who use their products.  The website caption states: “Share. Vote. Discuss. See.” And Starbucks users do! In an interview with the CMO of Starbucks, it was noted that they had found 100,000 ideas  from the “mystarbucksidea” community that they would be able to use to improve the Starbucks brand. You can watch a presentation from Matthew Guiste, Director of Global Social Media on the mystarbucksidea, here.
  • Pepsi –In 2010, Pepsi turned over their entire Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative to local consumers in local communities. Instead of assuming where they should give money, they asked consumers to vote for where it should go. They called it Pepsi Refresh, with the idea that they wanted to help refresh everything. The Pepsi Refresh Project invited individuals and organizations to submit beneficial, achievable, constructive and “shovel-ready” ideas that would make a positive impact in communities. Americans voted for their favorite ideas at www.refresheverything.com.

In a press release showcasing some of the Pepsi Refresh initiatives, Jill Beraud, CMO and president of joint ventures for PepsiCo, shared the value of the innovative project. He stated: “The Pepsi Refresh Project was developed with the belief that great ideas can come from anyone, anywhere, anytime. The first group of winners proves it’s true.  Each of them is a testament to how someone from any walk of life can produce powerful, creative and fun ideas that can make a difference.”

  • Unilever— Unilever is no exception when it comes to consumer co-creativity. On their website under their “innovation” tab, they list an entire section that they’ve labeled as their “Challenges and Wants.”   

The website states: “We’re looking for new designs and technologies that help us improve the way we make our products. There are a series of challenges which we’re already working on, and where we’d like to work together with partners. We call these our ‘wants’.”

Unilver is actively inviting participation from consumers (or partners) to solve the problems they have. With an open innovation strategy initially started in 2009, Unilever has increased their innovation from 25% coming from outside their company walls to 60%. This is incredible. They’ve essentially doubled the ideas that they use – and more than half were from outside their walls!

  • Mountain Dew—Mountain Dew is another example. They’re revolutionizing soda with their DewMocracy project where they state that “The next Dew is all about you.” Mountain Dew completely turned over their next soda product creation to the consumer, allowing them to vote on the flavor, the color, the name, the bottle design and even the packaging. The DewMocracy project not only increased brand participation and brand loyalty, but it also helped increase their bottom line as well.

These aren’t token campaigns. These are global initiatives from some of the largest organizations in the world. If they are actively looking to partner with consumers in relevant, tangible ways, shouldn’t credit unions continue to do so as well?

As consumers have changed, brands needs to as well. This is an incredibly opportunity for credit unions to leverage the corporate structure they already have in place and better understand and serve the membership. Not only can this help you understand your membership, it can serve as a differentiator that directly ties back to credit union cooperative principles.

As you finalize your planning for 2013, remember the member voice.

Josh Allison

Josh Allison

Josh Allison is the founder and Chief Ideator for Think Café and a Senior Consultant for FI-Strategies, LLC. He has spoken and worked with organizations from Hawaii to New York ... Web: www.fi-strategies.com Details