Aug. 25, 2008 at 2:32pm

Have you got the gooey blues?

Posted by Kurt Jacobson in Talking to Members, The Power of Creativity
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When member satisfaction surveys rank us high for customer service, we must be doing a great job, right?

Not necessarily.

“Go into a typical home and you’d see Tide containers with streams of gooey, blue liquid detergent running down the outside of the bottle,” said A.G. Lafley, CEO of P&G, in an interview with Chief Executive Magazine. The consumer never reported any problems, and when surveyed they said they loved their liquid Tide package because they “just assumed that’s the way it’s always been” and there wasn’t any other way.

Instead of quantitative surveying, P&G did more in-depth, qualitative research that led them to develop the “self-draining, easy-to-measure cap, like the maple syrup makers now use.”

Lafley also said the powdered detergent box was highly rated, but consumers couldn’t open the box without punching it with a screwdriver, which P&G has now fixed.

So what are our credit union “gooey blues?”

Standing in teller lines. Is this a fast food joint? Am I cattle? Don’t you trust me to wait my turn until the person who came in before me is served? May I sit, or even lean against something?

Bank hours. Why do I have to take time from work or join the lunch-time crunch in your lobby when I need to sign up for a new CD? It sure would be easier, for me anyway, to stop by after work. Why not be open from 11 a.m. – 7 p.m. two days a week? Or – gasp – on Sundays?

Shared branching. Why can’t I make a deposit in your ATM for shared branching? At many credit unions, I can’t even use the drive through when I am a shared branching member. Why? Talk about inconvenient. This, I know, is not a policy set by individual credit unions, but if no one says, “Hey, why not fix this?” it will be a gooey mess forever.

Dedicate some time to spend with members – you might just discover some more customer-pleasing cures to your individual gooey blues.

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