For those of you who watch cooking shows, you may already know about MasterChef. The show features judges Gordon Ramsay, Joe Bastianich and Tiffany Derry as they discover America’s greatest amateur cooks. But it’s a bumpy process…
In a recent episode, Joe tasted one team’s rice and asked them repeatedly, “What is it missing?” (P.S. It was salt…it’s usually salt.) But they had no idea; the only thing written on their faces was confusion. That’s sometimes what happens to your credit union member experience too.
You fashion a fabulous experience program, but something’s missing. You aren’t seeing the results you should. You need a certain secret ingredient, something to add flavor and substance to your service.
Many times, that secret ingredient is accountability.
Credit Union Member Experience: A Matter of Trust
A credit union member experience program, no matter how well-constructed, is nothing without accountability. Some people don’t buy in from the start. Others go all-in but naturally backslide over time as things get busy. The reason doesn’t matter too much because the result is the same…standards slip and you lose trust with consumers.
As Thomas Paine said, “A body of men, holding themselves accountable to nobody, ought not to be trusted by anybody.”
Managers often don’t know how to approach holding people accountable to service programs. They don’t know how to start reinstalling reasons for consumers to trust the organization. It’s not as clear-cut as numerical metrics. It might feel awkward.
But if you do nothing, it only gets worse. Team members need to see leaders at all levels living and enforcing the program. That’s how they know it’s important enough to live out for themselves.
Prove you walk your people-first talk.
Tips for Managers and Leaders
Ok, these are great head-in-the-clouds ideas about accountability. But what about practical ways to help your team? Let’s dive into some tips:
1. Everyone has a number. This method (from Gino Wickman’s Traction) assigns a number to each person related to the most important thing they do. Maybe it’s two for two hours speaking with consumers. Or five for five applications processed. Someone’s number gives you a quick way to hold them accountable to their highest-impact area.
2. Scorecards and shops. Another route is scorecards specific to your journey map. This provides a step-by-step understanding of how staff live your program. And mystery shops let you really experience what consumers experience using an outside party. After all, people are on their best behavior when they see leaders around.
3. Managers’ Guides and extra coaching. One of the best ways to have greater accountability to your service program is to teach managers how to do it. Have special resources for managers as part of your experience trainings, and devote extra time to coaching them on leadership skills needed to hold others accountable.
Your consumers are judging your credit union member experience standards every day. You can’t afford to shrug your shoulders when something’s missing from the consumer experience recipe. On The Mark Strategies not only helps you build journey maps and train staff; we provide managers’ guides and extra coaching so you have a program with accountability. Book a free consultation now.
