Customer service and customer experience blog for call center professionals
In our business, we are privileged enough to watch as our clients go above and beyond in providing a great customer service by putting an end to long hold times via our call-back solutions. Of the many success stories we observe every day, we’re particularly excited to share this one, featuring First Service Credit Union (FSCU). Many lessons regarding upping the customer experience game can be gleaned from their successes.
Velocity Credit Union is based in Austin and has served the area since 1947. It is one of the largest financial institutions in the state of Texas with over $840 million in assets, and provides personalized banking to more than 84,000 members across six local branches.
Velocity takes pride in making its members feel valued, and in creating a positive customer experience, however their current service offering was not meeting these goals. Velocity was struggling with long hold times and a high number of abandoned calls. They thought they had to replace their legacy call center system to correct this problem – which would be costly and time consuming. Continue reading
It’s that time of the year again! That’s right folks, tradeshow season is upon us. What better way to start the action than by attending one of the best call center events for credit unions. The Credit Union Call Center Conference has been helping this space for the last 20 years! You can catch the event at Harrah’s Hotel in Las Vegas, from October 17-19.
With members’ needs constantly evolving, attendees will return to their organizations with practical tips, tools and inspiration to address the latest requests. This conference gives you a unique opportunity to network with other professionals in the industry and learn valuable leadership skills and best practices. Continue reading
Why is it that credit unions top the charts for customer satisfaction compared to other financial institutions? These member driven organizations have notably higher expectations than customers of banks do, and yet they consistently outrank them on client satisfaction scores. The explanation is simple – credit unions work overtime to woo disgruntled bank customers by delivering a personalized service experience. Simply put, the customer experience is at the top of their priority list!
The challenge is that in order to continue enjoying these positive outcomes, they’ll need to maintain and, if possible, improve their already extraordinary levels of customer satisfaction. One important metric that many credit unions are focusing on is high abandon rates in their call center (since this is a clear sign of member dissatisfaction). Luckily, there’s a secret sauce to improving this metric and creating the perfect customer experience recipe. Continue reading
We’re excited to share with you our most recent success story featuring Credit Union of Colorado. Located in multiple cities within the state of Colorado, this credit union emphasizes the importance of delivering a superior member service.
With a proud focus on the experience they kept a keen eye on the contact center, and had identified instabilities which were negatively affecting the calling experience. Due to staffing changes, weather issues, and a surge of card replacements, they experienced the “perfect storm” in their call center and the result was increased wait times for callers. This led to a high level of dissatisfaction among members, culminating in numerous complaints to the credit union. Continue reading
89% of customers have stopped doing business with a company after a poor customer experience. While this is an alarming statistic, you should keep in mind that making simple changes to your call center can make all the difference. One obvious strategy for improving the customer experience is to address long hold-times, which is typically the result of unexpected spikes in call volume. Continue reading
Mark your calendars folks! The Credit Union Call Center Conference, October 5-7 at the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas, is just around the corner.
The Credit Union Call Center Conference is a unique opportunity to gain best practice insights from industry colleagues. Through presentations, networking sessions, workshops, and more, attendees will return to their organizations with practical tips, tools and inspiration for success.
Credit Unions frequently lead the financial services sector with high Customer Satisfaction Levels (CSAT) as they strive to provide the best possible experience for their members. In an effort to maintain satisfaction levels, a growing number of credit unions have turned to Fonolo’s call-back solutions allowing members to “press 1 for a call-back”, eliminating the need for them to wait on hold. Continue reading
We at Fonolo, LOVE working with credit unions. This industry has a true grasp on what the customer experience is all about.
We’re excited to share with you our most recent success story featuring Stanford Federal Credit Union. Stanford FCU is $1.7 billion full-service financial institution, owned and operated by over 50,000 members of the Stanford Community.
They had identified the contact center as an area of concern. The department was understaffed and personnel lacked contact center knowledge. Due to a shortage of agents, calls were sent to a backup call center during business hours at a cost of $5 per call, in order to meet service levels. On top of all that, there was no technology in place that could assist the staff in delivering a positive service experience to members.
Continue reading
At Fonolo, we’re always talking about how call-backs are a win/win: they result in both an improved customer experience for the caller, and reduced costs for the call center. We’ve even published a recent report focused on the ROI of call-backs (based on our popular blog series).
Another great case for call-backs is reducing the dependency – and cost – of sending calls to a third-party call center, something we run into quite frequently. For example, call centers will sometimes transfer calls that sit in the queue too long to an overflow call center, in order to meet service levels. Continue reading
Maintaining and improving the customer experience is important for most, if not all organizations. However for credit unions – known for providing best-in-class customer service – this is a real priority. In fact, the 2015 Temkin Experience Ratings which ranks customer experience (based on a survey of 10,000 consumers) placed credit unions in the 8th spot out of 293 companies across 20 industries. Credit unions as a group have earned the highest ranking in the banking sector over the past four years! Continue reading
