Your MemberView Voice of Member reports include important key member experience performance indicators. It’s important for all stakeholders involved in the member experience–from the Board of Directors to credit union team members–to understand the significance and use of each of the measures discussed here.
A credit union should expect its key performance indicator scores will be higher for specific experiences since the survey respondents are those who are actively using the credit union. A member relationship survey, on the other hand, may include responses from members who use the credit union infrequently. Some other factors that can affect scores include whether indirect borrowers are included and whether those who have been denied loans are included.
Overall Experience (Member Satisfaction)
What it means…
The overall experience score reflects any satisfaction questions you are asking members. A common satisfaction question might look like this:
How would you rate your overall experience in obtaining your loan?
These types of questions measure the basics. They reflect core competence in retail financial service delivery. Most respondents will give a score of 4 or 5 (on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being best) unless something went wrong during their experience.
How to use it…
While the overall experience score is shown in the MemberView dashboard and scorecard, it’s not strongly correlated with member loyalty so it has little predictive value. On the other hand, it can be an indicator of member experiences that are broken. If the overall experience score for a particular experience is below a 4.0, there is probably an issue with that member journey.
Unless a credit union is experiencing a great deal of attrition and member dissatisfaction, we don’t recommend using this score for measuring the credit union’s overall member experience at a high level. The bar is simply too low for this measure to make it helpful for any credit union that is serious about beating the competition by creating an extraordinary member experience.
Promoter Score
What it means…
Every MemberView survey includes a Promoter score based on the Net Promoter Score® developed in 2003 by Fred Reichfield of Bain & Company. Reichfeld’s article, “The One Number You Need to Grow,” published in the Harvard Business Review, described how the score was positively correlated to customer loyalty.
The score is based on the simple question: “How likely is it that you would recommend our company/product/service to a friend or colleague?”
The scoring for the question is based on a 0 to 10 scale.
Promoters are those who respond with a score of 9 or 10 and are considered loyal enthusiasts. Detractors are those who respond with a score of 0 to 6 – unhappy customers. Scores of 7 and 8 are passives, and they will only count towards the total number of respondents, but not directly affect the formula. NPS® is calculated by subtracting the percentage of customers who are Detractors from the percentage of customers who are Promoters.
The Promoter score can be as low as −100 (everybody is a detractor) or as high as +100 (everybody is a promoter). A Promoter score that is positive (i.e., higher than zero) is felt to be good.
MemberView also includes an open-ended follow-up question to help credit unions discover why members are promoters, passives, or detractors. This open-ended question is critical to helping the credit union understand the reasons behind the score itself and helps make the score actionable.
How to use it…
The Promoter score is primarily a measure of brand loyalty. Members who recommend the credit union to others are taking the risk that the credit union will perform as well for their friends and colleagues as they do for themselves. The score reflects the member’s emotional attachment to the brand often based on an experience that goes beyond core competence in retail financial service delivery. The Promoter score is much more highly correlated to member loyalty and repurchase than the overall satisfaction score.
However, the Net Promoter Score® is not without its drawbacks. Some critics have pointed out that some very large companies have relatively low Net Promoter Scores® while some “Mom and Pop” stores have very high Net Promoter Scores®. In our experience, members give their credit unions a fairly high Net Promoter Score®, especially compared to banks because they feel a sense of ownership and a sense of being respected and valued. However, those good feelings don’t always translate into expanded account relationships if the credit union doesn’t offer competitive pricing or convenience. That is why we recommend using the score as part of a balanced scorecard rather than a stand alone measure. Since credit unions are member-owned, the Promoter score is a good reflection of how well the credit union is serving its members by creating a unique and desirable member brand experience.
We don’t think the Promoter score is the best measure of team and individual performance since it tends to be more reflective of the member’s feeling about the brand overall than about an individual performer or isolated transaction.
For a member relationship survey, credit unions should set a goal of +60.00 or better. High performing credit unions achieve a Promoter score of +65.00 to +70.00. For specific experience surveys, the goal should be +80.00. High performing credit unions generally achieve scores of +80.00 or better across delivery channels for specific experiences such as account opening, basic transacting, and lending. These scores reflect suppression of indirect borrowers from member relationship survey invitations and suppression of denied loans from a lending survey invitation.
Member Effort Score
What it means…
Every MemberView survey includes a Member Effort score based on groundbreaking research from the Customer Contact Council. Their July 2010 article in the Harvard Business Review, “Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers,” showed that ease of doing business trumps customer service as a predictor of customer loyalty.
The researchers asked this single question: “How much effort did you personally have to put forth to handle your request?” of 75,000 B2C and B2B customers over a 3-year period. They found a high correlation between low customer effort and loyalty. Of those who expended low effort, 94% expressed an intention to repurchase, 88% said they would increase spending with the company, and only 1% said they would speak negatively about the company. Conversely, 81% of customers who put forth high effort indicated they would spread negative word-of-mouth about the company.
The MemberView Member Effort score is derived from a single question:
“How easy did we make it for you to (complete your transaction, obtain your loan, open your account, etc.?)”
The scoring for the question is based on a 1 to 7 scale based on cross-industry standards. Members who give a score of 5 or less on the question are presented with a follow-up question asking what the credit union could have done to make the process easier.
How to use it…
The Member Effort score has two uses. The first is to determine if specific member journeys are easy or difficult. In general, a score below 6.0 indicates that there is room for improvement for a particular member experience. Relatively seamless experiences score a 6.5 or better.
The second use of the Member Effort score is in its predictive value for increased member walletshare. The score represents how well the credit union is positioned to compete in an era of e-commerce and m-commerce. That is why we advise credit unions to include it in a balanced scorecard of member experience metrics.
The Member Effort score is less effective as a measure of team and individual performance. While individual performers can reduce member effort, they typically cannot do it while working within cumbersome processes.
Member Effort Gap
What it means…
MemberView goes beyond simple member effort scoring, by tracking member expectations for ease of use alongside member actual evaluations of a credit union’s ease of use. The member effort gap is the difference between a member’s expectation for ease of an experience and perception of the actual ease of an experience.
How to use it…
A credit union can assess how the extent to which it exceeds member expectations by looking for a Member Effort gap score in the positive range. A score of +1.0 or better means a credit union is significantly exceeding member expectations for ease of use.
Individual Performer Score
What it means…
The Individual Performer Score in MemberView is the average of all questions that gauge individual team member behaviors. It does not include the Promoter question, the Member Effort question, the Overall Satisfaction question or any question that asks about a process. It is a true reflection of an individual’s performance based on factors that he or she can control. It ranges from 1.0 to 5.0 with 5.0 being the best.
How to use it…
We recommend using this score for evaluating and rewarding teams and individuals. It is the most accurate reflection of an individual’s performance. Because each credit union can customize the questions that gauge individual performance, there is not standard benchmark. Credit unions that ask sales questions generally have lower individual performer scores than those who do not. We’re happy to consult with you to set goals based on your own questions and benchmarked data.
Total Experience Score
What it means…
The total experience score is simply an average of the scores for all questions (except the Promoter and Member Effort questions). The score ranges from is 1.0 to 5.0 with 5.0 being the best.
How to use it…
Because each credit union can customize survey questions, there is not standard benchmark. Credit unions that ask sales questions generally have lower total experience scores than those that do not. We’re happy to consult with you to set goals based on your own questions and benchmarked data.
