Don't Forget to Listen

Interestingly, in the age of big data, many credit unions are realizing that the most useful data is what members, potential members, and employees are thinking and feeling. While big data looks at WHAT people are doing, it is equally (if not more) important to understand WHY they are doing it. Cornerstone Credit Union League's Research Department specializes in discovering these vital insights.

Here are some of the time-tested tools we use to obtain accurate and meaningful information for successful decision-making:

Member surveys – Deliver valuable insights from your members’ perspective and reveal the principle drivers of member satisfaction and loyalty, segmented by factors such as age, income, and gender.

Focus groups – Provide an in-depth understanding of members’ (and non-members’) feelings, values, and motivations regarding your most pressing questions. Focus groups can reveal perceptions of the credit union’s image, service quality, messaging strategies, and more.  

Frontline staff insights – Glean actionable data from an invaluable but often overlooked source: member-facing employees. These employees can offer rich and often unexpected insights on topics such as how to improve employee-member interaction, what members’ pain points are, and what the competition is up to.

Employee surveys – Provide accurate and cost-effective feedback that will benefit all employees from tellers to the CEO. Employee surveys will help you uncover the strengths and weaknesses of your credit union’s workplace environment.

Site selection profiles – Help credit unions determine whether a target area can accommodate a new branch. These tools examine dominant socio economic and demographic characteristics, financial institution data, crime statistics, and traffic pattern data.

Credit unions need to know what their members, potential members, and employees are thinking, what they are struggling with, and what they desire. This means listening to them, and that’s where Cornerstone Research can help.

For more information about services offered through Cornerstone’s Research Department, contact Doug Foister at 800-422-5762, ext. 6477 or dfoister@cornerstoneleague.coop.