(And this time, we mean it!)

Every now and again, I get a stark reminder that credit unions simply do things differently. This morning, I had reason to call a local branch of one of the Big Banks. Even though it was past opening time, I couldn’t reach a person, no matter what buttons I pressed. I swung around their phone tree like Tarzan (with nearly as much yelling, I admit), but every button pushed only got me another recorded voice. Time to real person: 19 minutes.

Just for the sake of comparison, I called our own Virtual Branch. Our welcome message includes the language, “If you want to speak with a real person, push…”. I wanted; I pushed. Time to real person: 25 seconds. I timed it.

Member service is just different than customer service. I don’t doubt that the people at the Big Bank were busy, and I know I get upset when available staff anywhere treat the phone as more urgent than the person in front of them. My objection was that there was simply no way to skip monkeying around in the phone tree except for hanging up and starting the whole process over again later.

This is not to say that our members will never be asked to wait on hold or in line at one of our branches. However, on our call line, you can immediately press “0″ to be connected to a human being, and if no human being is available, you’re invited to leave a message and a number, and you WILL be called back.

It’s a small courtesy, in the grand scheme of things, but it does indicate a crucial difference in attitude: “customer service” happens at the convenience of the business; “member service” is for the convenience of the member.

Filed under: The Credit Union difference by Shannon