Why members don’t believe you when you talk about member service

When you say, “We have excellent member service.”

Your members hears, “Blah, blah, blah, blah.”

Members have heard it all before.   And too many times that “excellent member service” was not so excellent.

I recently heard my cable company talking about their focus on member service.

I laughed out loud.

So how can you talk about member service in a way that it actually means something?  How do you get that message past the “yeah right” filter in your prospects’ brains?   Get specific.

Get specific about your member service

Specifics are always stronger than generalities.  This is especially true if you are using a cliché like, “excellent member service.”

Here’s an example from Amazon’s letter to their shareholders from Jeff Bezos.  He talks about Amazon’s Mayday Button, a button customers can click on their Fire HDX to talk to an Amazon expert.

“Mayday Tech Advisors have received 35 marriage proposals from customers. 475 customers have asked to talk to Amy, our Mayday television personality. 109 Maydays have been customers asking for assistance with ordering a pizza. By a slim margin, Pizza Hut wins customer preference over Domino’s. There are 44 instances where the Mayday Tech Advisor has sung Happy Birthday to the customer. Mayday Tech Advisors have been serenaded by customers 648 times. And 3 customers have asked for a bedtime story. Pretty cool.”

Notice that these Mayday Tech Advisors are being portrayed as helpful, knowledgeable, friendly, and willing to go above and beyond to make sure customers are satisfied.   And imagine how boring it would be if Amazon described them as “helpful, knowledgeable, friendly and willing to go above and beyond to make sure customers are satisfied.”

Are your employees going above and beyond?

Does your credit union have an “Above and Beyond” award?  Every month employees and management can gather the best stories of how employees have gone out of their way to help members.   The winner gets a prize as well as public recognition.

I’m always amazed at the stories that come out of this exercise. By officially gathering those stories, you can share them with the marketing department.  This way you will have specifics to share instead of generalities, so you can officially lay your member service clichés to rest.

And yes. I just did use a cliché to talk about a cliché.   Let me follow some of my own advice and try again.

This way you can escort your member service clichés to the door, pat them on the head, and say, “There’s a nice cable company up the road who would love to have you.”

 

Holly Buchanan

Holly Buchanan

Holly Buchanan is the author of Selling Financial Services to Women – What Men Need to Know and Even Women Will Be Surprised to Learn. She is the co-author of The ... Web: www.SellingFinancialServicesToWomen.com Details