Taking Service to the Next Level

Meridian Credit Union : Taking Service to the Next Level

(Central 1 Market Smarts newsletter, November 2009)

Merdian Credit Union was created from the 2005 merger of HEPCOE Credit Union and Niagara Credit Union. The newly-formed organization manages approximately $4.6 billion in assets and serves 214,000 retail and business members throughout southern Ontario. With 44 branches and eight commercial business centres, Meridian Credit Union is the largest credit union in Ontario and the fourth largest in Canada. Meridian is dedicated to reinventing neighbourhood banking by extending operating hours, increasing member access to financial coaches, and ensuring decisions are made at the local level.

After the merger, Meridian undertook the usual post merger activities of integrating business systems and banking platforms. Creating or nurturing a sales culture didn’t start until 2006 and is still an ongoing process according to Robert Leaker, Vice President, Emerging Markets and Business Innovations, “We may have started with the best from both worlds but we also wanted to build an organization based on the Meridian way and not on a sales and service program developed in the past, and that takes time and commitment from all levels of the organization”. In fact, Robert emphasized the time an organization needs to commit to the process, “You can’t give up after twelve months or switch providers because results have not been immediate. Our cultural shift took eighteen months and three years later we are still in the process of implementing stage three, our proactive sales model.”

However, discussing stage three is premature unless a review of the development and implementation of the first two stages is complete. Without developing the ground work stage three will not succeed. Robert states, “Unless your members are receiving a level of service that is able to move them from a zone of indifference to a zone of delight your chances of success are greatly diminished”. A credit union must earn the right to ask for the business (see Relationship Hierarchy). One might think that a program that takes three years to implement is unusually long, however, Meridian is committed to developing a culture supported not only by its employees but accepted by its membership.

Defining Service and Establishing Benchmarks

Meridian’s initial discussions and ultimate commitment to develop a pro-active sales culture started with the establishment of a clear definition of service. Questions management had to answer included: what is good customer service, what does it look like and how do you measure if you are successful?
Many credit unions utilize annual surveys to measure a variety of service attributes. Annual surveys are an excellent tool to establish benchmarks and examine specific issues. They are and continue to be a valuable asset in a credit union’s arsenal to measure success and discover if problems exist. When embarking on the new sales program Meridian employed a member wide survey to establish initial customer service benchmarks. They also discovered what service attributes were important to their members.

After the initial research was complete, Meridian developed a system of measurement specifically related to member service metrics and began to track the results on a weekly basis. Without weekly reports the credit union could not determine if a new service program or tactic was effective and quickly address any issues. Weekly reporting would also maintain employee engagement (both frontline and management) in the pursuit of service excellence.

Ultimately the key member service metric Meridian Credit Union chose as a measure of corporate success was the Net Promoter Score or NPS. The NPS methodology in its simplest form is the result of asking one straightforward question: “Are you willing to recommend Meridian Credit Union to your friends and family?”
When the credit union took its first NPS measurement, they discovered the score was +55 out of a possible 100 points (the lowest possible NPS is –100). The score is derived by tallying those who scored 0 to 6 (on a scale of 0 to 10) and subtracting from those who scored a 9 or 10. Best in class NPS for the financial services industry range in the neighborhood of +75 to +80. Meridian is proud to say that some of their branches have already achieved these high ratings.
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