As a credit union market research firm, we know a thing or 20 about writing quality and actionable member surveys. These come in the form of mail surveys, phone surveys, and email surveys for your members. Although the methodology may differ, there are several best-practice member survey questions you should be addressing in your reach-out.
Make sure you consider these 8 questions in your next member survey at your credit union.
Here are 8 best-practice member survey questions for your next survey. Although you may have other ideas and other questions to ask, we highly recommend including these 8.
We'll explain in more detail below.
Question 1: Likelihood to Recommend
Not only a common key performance indicator (KPI) for credit unions but a KPI for all industries. Ask this question using a scale of 0 to 10 with "10" being very likely to recommend. Group your 9 and 10s together into a percentage and subtract out your 0 to 6s percentage. The difference is your NPS.
This NPS (+54, +22, -18) is compared to other credit unions, other banks, and leaders in likelihood to recommend like Apple and Amazon. It's a fantastic benchmarking statistic to help you understand where your credit union sits in relation to others. A great metric to test again in 12 to 18 months to see how the dial has moved.
A must-include for any credit union member survey.
Question 2: Awareness of Marketing Sources
Not sure about your ROI on your marketing, advertising, and public relations efforts? What better way to measure than to ask your credit union market research firm to include this question.
Here you can ask where the member has seen or heard information from the credit union in the past 3 months. We use 3 months because going beyond 3 months extends the memory a bit too long and results in inexact data.
Here you can list of multiple response options such as the website, billboards, newsletters, newspapers, social media, word-of-mouth, etc. The list should be comprehensive with all of the relevant sources you want to test awareness for. Include an other(s) in case you missed anything. Don't extend beyond 8 to 10 for mobile-friendly design.
This question helps you optimize and spend your dollars where members are telling you too.
Seems almost too simple right? Ask members and base your strategy off their feedback.
Question 3: Is Your Credit Union Their PFI?
It's one thing if your member is simply that, a member, who owns 1 account or 1 loan and uses 4 other financial institutions. It's a different type of member if they mention your credit union is their primary financial institution (PFI). A PFI is classified as the primary institution a member or customer uses for their core checking account or you hold the majority of their accounts.
This question helps a credit union understand share of wallet and percentage of passive and dedicated members they have. It also provides marketers with a now targeted audience to pinpoint those who do not use the credit union as their PFI in an attempt to convert them. If your credit union is not your member's PFI, who is and how can we acquire them?
All credit unions want their members to use them as their PFI because it provides cross-usage among accounts, increases share of wallet, increases loyalty, and reduces the likelihood to switch to a competitor.
All key metrics that keep a member for a long time. Barriers to switch PFIs are extremely high.
"The more accounts they have with your credit union,
the higher the brick wall barrier to switch is."
Question 4: Factors When Choosing a PFI?
Coupled with the question about usage of the credit union as a PFI (Question 3), the member survey can also dig into factor(s) that go into choosing a PFI. Here you can either ask this question with an open-ended text box to acquire unaided responses or offer a list of 8 to 10 factors for a multiple response question (recommended).
These choices would include factors like convenience, lower fees, reputation, customer service, trust, ease of doing business, etc. Once you have this data back from your credit union market research firm and you realize 85% of members choose their PFI because of the "ease of doing business" you've just created a new strategy and messaging campaign for the next quarter.
"You want a credit union that is easy to work with? Here are 4 reasons to choose us!"
Understanding why people make decisions and what motivates them can be capitalized on in operations, marketing, and strategic efforts.
Question 5: Satisfaction With Those Same Factors
Now that you have the importance ratings on each of the factor(s) for choosing a PFI (Question 4), ask for satisfaction ratings with your credit union. The satisfaction categories should mirror your 8 to 10 importance categories above to a T.
After collecting this member survey data you can then plot this data on a grid quadrant matrix. The matrix graphically displays factors that are most important to your members that they are least satisfied with (high priority fixes) and factors that are most important to your members that they are most satisfied with (competitive differentiators).
This creates evidence and fact-based decisions to improve your operations at your credit union.
Example of Covey Matrix from Irwan Taupiq.
Question 6: Compare Yourself to Others
In addition to NPS, another excellent way to compare your credit union to other banks and financial institutions is to ask a more direct question. Here you should ask your members not only how your credit union compares to the competition overall, but also how it compares based on a number of factors.
Use a grid question to list out the factors you want to compare such as responsiveness, mobile app, online banking, etc. Give the member an option to choose if your credit union is much better, somewhat better, the same, somewhat worse, or much worse.
Or to simplify just ask better, the same, or worse.
This competitive data helps your credit union understand differentiation and gaps in your product and service model.
Understanding your competition sets you up to make the next strategic move.
Question 7: Word Association with the Credit Union
People associate brands and companies with specific features. Coca-Cola is associated with things like "classic", "red", and "soft drink". Apple is associated with "cutting-edge", "ease of use", and "iPhone". Drive Research is associated with "responsiveness", "data driven", and "friendly".
What is your credit union associated with?
Here you should ask your members a word or phrase they think of when they see or hear your credit union name. The credit union market research can tally these open-ended responses into word counts or even better, visual word clouds.
This gives your marketing team an idea of what members are associating with your brand and whether it is positive, neutral, or negative sentiment.
Question 8: Would the Member Like a Follow-up?
An often forgotten but terrific value-added question for your member surveys. Since you'll be reaching out to members in the masses, why not use the survey as a way to answer questions or set up a call with a mortgage rep?
Simply asking your members if they'd like a follow-up call or email from your credit union helps manage the member relationship better. You should always be asking and listening.
Maybe the member has been sitting on a question or frustration for months and has never gotten around to emailing the customer support team to tackle. Or maybe the member is considering refinancing a home mortgage, but haven't had a chance to call.
Asking this question puts the ball in your court for follow-up.
This question often leads to answers to questions you may not have known your members needed and the additional cross-selling of other products or services. The addition of this question is a true positive bottom-line benefit of conducting a member survey separate from the data and feedback.
Contact Us
Drive Research is a credit union market research firm. For more information on our financial service offerings in market research visit our page here. There you can also request our whitepaper on 6 CX strategies that will drive your bank or credit union strategy forward.
Contact us at [email protected] or call us at 315-303-2040.