Confidence in credit unions up, banks down

Credit unions once again take the lead over banks when it comes to trustworthiness in the public eye.

Image source: Geograph

According to the latest Chicago Booth/Kellogg School quarterly survey results, respondents’ confidence in credit unions rose to 63 percent, a few points up from the previous quarter’s 58 percent. Meanwhile the percentage of respondents who trust large banks dropped from 25 percent to 23 percent. In contrast, trust in small community banks got a more favorable 55 percent, up from 51 percent the previous quarter.

As a whole, trust in the overall financial system isn’t looking so good, down to only 21 percent of respondents stating that they do trust the system – the lowest result this category has seen since the March 2009 poll was taken as the global economic crisis steamrolled through the industry.

What else is on your members’ minds? Get more survey results from the article and see where people are putting their trust and what gives them cold feet.

Member satisfaction surveys: Building a business case

The pressure to improve member satisfaction is as high as ever.

Image source: BWSO

With so much competition for members today, the answer to the question "to survey or not to survey" has to be, "yes." Satisfied members are more loyal, spend more, and cost less to maintain. Post-call surveys represent the most reliable way of assessing real satisfaction, and these survey results will be vital when it comes to making changes to the way companies interact with members.

Does your credit union use surveys to manage member satisfaction? How about your own internal customers from an IT perspective? Read more about using surveys to gauge and improve member satisfaction.

Emailed my bank saying I find their website very difficult to use. They refuse to fix any problems, but gave me £60.

The general idea behind online banking is convenience, and for most people, this includes ease of use.

Image source: Twitter post

Interestingly, a disappointed online customer sends and email to her bank describing her difficulties in using the bank's web services, and in response to her concerns, rather than hearing about possible solutions, she is instead told that the bank has no plans to upgrade the site and is issued a £60 credit to her account. She is told that this credit should sufficiently compensate her for the troubles she has been experiencing.

Does this sound like customer service to you? While issuing a credit to her account is a nice gesture of course, the obstacles that raised this customer's concerns to begin with are still there, and the prospects for improvement look doubtful thus far.

How user-friendly are your credit-union's services? Learn from this customer's Twitter post what you can do to ensure that your members are happy.