Enhance Your Credit Union’s Mobile Member Experience

By Chris Steffes, Remote Service Consultant

According to a recent survey from Bank of America, nearly one-third of mobile banking users are now accessing mobile banking every day. The Millennial user – aged 18-34 – has high expectations when it comes to mobile banking. Not only do they want self-service and convenience features, they also want to communicate with you within the mobile session. When surveyed by FICO, millennials who frequently use their bank/credit union mobile app report greater satisfaction with their financial institution.

If you haven’t considered the mobile user experience, especially when it comes to attracting new members, it’s time to think about how your credit union’s service delivery mix should shift towards mobile in the next year.

To maximize the member experience, credit unions should:

• Pick features that matter most to members. FICO recently conducted a survey and found that mobile users want more self-service features, like photo bill pay, but also wanted more interaction with their credit union, through alert messages, bill or loan pay reminders, and fraud alerts.
  
  
• Advertise through mobile. If your current mobile solution doesn’t offer marketing tools to spread the word about your great products, how are mobile users going to learn about what you can offer them? Your mobile solution should offer banner ads, pre or post-login ad pages, location-based advertising, or secure messaging to keep members informed. If you don’t communicate directly with members, you will miss out on opportunities to cross-sell your products and services.

• Understand the channel. Mobile banking is not a “once-and-done” launch, but rather a channel that provides credit unions with the opportunity to become more knowledgeable about their members in order to serve them better. By conducting mobile/online banking member surveys, requesting a “Mobile Audit” by a consulting organization, such as CU Solutions Group, and by tracking members’ mobile habits – how frequent they visit your site, how long they are in the mobile session – valuable information can help you support the changing way in which members transact.

• Train your staff. Educating your teams to professionally communicate with members via secure messaging or chat will not only enhance the member experience, it will expand the role of your customer-facing staff to meet the needs of your members. Make staff training an integral part of your overall transition into mobile. Your front line staff can be your best advocates to promote and service your members.

Mobile banking has fast become more than just a transactional space for credit union members. Mobile is now a channel where members want to connect, communicate, and transact with your credit union. Bank of America reports 47% of consumers use mobile or online banking as a preferred method of transacting with their bank/credit union. As more people engage you through mobile, credit unions must shift their focus to deliver services and a great customer experience to where their members are – on mobile.

CU Solutions Group can help you develop your mobile banking app of you already have one or help you create mobile banking app from the ground up! With innovate mobile sites and smartphone apps we have technology teams that can help make your dreams for your mobile app a reality!