Take Your Member Alerts from Good to Great

by: Ron Daly, President/CEO, DigitalMailer, Inc.

Your credit union has built a strong member email list. You keep it updated and growing, encouraging both new and existing members to opt in for important alerts, news and messages related to their financial activities. You have boldly stepped into the world of Facebook and Twitter, and your followers are on the rise. Even your website has been “mobilized” to better communicate with members on the go.

Everything looks good, but can you make it great?

Not only can you, you need to.

With the prominence of social media in people’s daily lives, consumers are becoming spoiled with notifications. They receive notices when they have new Twitter followers, when a Facebook friend tags them in a photo, when someone requests to join their LinkedIn network. Friends forward posts to inboxes; family members send links via texts. Night and day, people are receiving mundane, seemingly endless information on their various electronic devices. No longer can they easily avoid these messages – and I’d argue that most have become conditioned to expect them. But the volume and often lack of importance means consumers have grown focused more on receiving notices and less on reading content. Most likely, they quickly scan a notice or check out the subject line rather than reading it all. And that creates challenges for credit unions needing to get their messages to stand apart.

No matter how strong or member-focused your credit union is – and I know the vast majority fit this bill – I believe most members don’t think that much about their credit union. It’s not that they don’t like you; it’s just that they don’t put much energy into their credit union relationship. They are happy as long as they get approved for the loan, aren’t surprised by big fees and can easily access their accounts when they need their money. It tends to take a missed payment, bounced check, or an NSF to get them excited about their credit union – and not in good way.
And that’s where your electronic notifications can to make a difference. Smart financial institutions have raised the bar by using targeted and actionable alerts that do more than warn members of low balances or inform them of overdraft charges.  Today’s technology allows credit unions to cross reference account balances with payment histories and adjust alerts to individual situations.

Let’s take a member with a checking account balance of $2,500. Doesn’t seem too low, right? But assume they have an automated, monthly mortgage payment scheduled that week for $2,400. Rather than send them a low-balance notice after the payment is made, consider what might happen if you had a different notification strategy. Instead of simply communicating “your money’s gone,” you shift the message to “Your money’s about to disappear, so let’s do something about it.” Talk about a member-focused credit union!

Adding a relevant, personal touch to your credit union’s notifications will create real value for your member relationships. It can change members’ perceptions of your credit union – from a place where they stash their money, to a trusted partner helping them manage their financial future.

Doesn’t that look great?