Take Off the Lid

In a room full of conference attendees, jars of candy are placed around the room. At the end of the day, some jars are almost empty; others are nearly full. A simple factor influenced which jars where nearly full: Those jars had lids. "Hassle factors really matter," said Tansley Stearns, chief impact officer at Filene Research Institute, Madison, Wis. She related the candy jar story to attendees of the CUES Webinar "Developing a Great Member Experience" on July 24. Stearns was part of the candy jar experiment at the hands of behavioral economists at a recent conference. "When you're looking at member experience, you're not even competing against the credit union down the street, Stearns said. "You're not competing against the big banks and community banks; you are competing against that very easy, simple, engaging experience that folks like Amazon have built.” Stearns challenged webinar attendees to remove hassle factors for members--even if it's just one a month that gets taken away. She pointed to a new measure for gauging consumer loyalty: customer/member effort score. The measurement is composed of a single question: How easy was it to do business with us? Is it easy to do business with your credit union? Or is there a lid on it? What barriers can you remove for your members?

Laura Lynch is CUES’ products and services coordinator. Listen to the CUES Webinar playback of "Developing a Great Member Experience." Hear from Stearns and Mike Neill, president of MNA Inc., CUES partner and founder of ServiStar, about how to make the member experience exceptional. Sign up for CUES School of Member Experience, Sept. 14-15, San Antonio.