Training staff on brand experience

In member business lending, we often focus a lot of our energy and attention on product-specific information, as well as policies, procedures and legislation. While this is all well and good, what really matters to the member is — do we offer a product they need and want and can we provided to them in a friendly and efficient manner?

A great deal of this discussion goes directly back to the state of your credit union’s brand. Unfortunately, training employees to engage in brand delivery is often neglected. Many credit you just feel that this function is not important or that they simply cannot afford to do it. To the contrary — brand training is critical and your credit union cannot afford not to do it.

Is also simply not effective to just issue brand edicts to your staff. You must show them through training how and why their contributions matter to the overall success of the credit union and specifically how their brand delivery enhances the member business lending experience.

All too often, credit union management and employees think the brand is simply a logos, tagline and advertising campaigns. This isn’t true. Educating employees that the brand is the credit union’s commitment to their members is paramount. For employees to effectively deliver your credit union’s brand they need to understand the brand itself and what behaviors are expected to support the brand.  Managers must educate and coach their employees by inspiration, encouragement and acting as role models.

Training for employees to deliver the brand include:

  • The background and rationale of the brand itself
  • Involvement from others: have marketing share why building the brand is so important or have a sales representative share how they deliver the value they offer and how it is better than the competition
  • Brand Ambassadors sharing how they deliver the brand
  • Role-play by having the employee tell the story based on their insight of the brand

If your credit union is deeply involved in member business lending, you cannot afford to have a weak brand. You must also make the investment in employee training to ensure your staff is effectively delivering the brand promise to members, every day. Anything less than that is a disservice to your brand and your members.

Lisa Dent

Lisa Dent

Ms. Dent joined MBL in July 2012 as a Risk Assessment Manager. She has worked in various roles at MBL which include Implementation Specialist and Training and Development Administrator. Prior ... Web: www.mblllc.com Details