Your Custom MX Goals on the MemberXP Dashboard

Creating a member experience scorecard is a critical factor in achieving a brand-defining member experience.  MemberXP’s built-in dashboards and scorecards allow all stakeholders to see the score at all times for all member experiences.  You can set custom goals for key performance indicators such as the Promoter Score and the Member Effort Score on your MemberXP dashboard and track them month-over-month for the year.  Here’s an example showing a goal for a credit union’s Member Effort Score with the goal set at 6.45.

You can also set goals for specific member experiences such as getting a mortgage or joining the credit union.  Here’s an example of the goal dashboard filtered by the new member experience.  At a glance you know that the credit union is below its goal threshold for the Promoter Score and the Member Effort Score for this experience because the bar for each of those measures appears in red.

Setting Custom KPI Goals Using Peer Data

Because MemberXP has hundreds of thousands of data points collected from credit union members on specific credit union experiences, your credit union has a reliable source of peer data to inform your scorecard goals.

MemberXP has peer score data for the following:

1. Overall experiential surveys
2. Overall relationship surveys
3. New Deposit Account Surveys
4. New Member Surveys
5. Transaction Surveys
6. Consumer Loan Surveys
7. Mortgage Loan Surveys
8. Contact Center Member Care (Problem Resolution) Surveys

You can use peer KPI data in two ways:

1. If you have been collecting member feedback with MemberXP and have benchmarked your Promoter and Member Effort scores, you can combine those benchmarks with peer data by downloading the worksheet from the link below.
2. If you’re new to member experience measurement, you can download the worksheet below and view the Goals for New CU’s tab to set goals based on MemberXP’s credit union member experience scores. You can also read this article for data on average scores increases in the first 24-months of a member experience improvement initiative.

Using the Goal Calculator Worksheet with Your Credit Union’s Benchmarked Scores

If you have your own benchmarked scores the goal calculator worksheet formula will recognize one of three scenarios:

1. Your credit union’s benchmarked score is below the peer median score.
2. Your credit union’s benchmarked score is above the peer median score but below the peer high performers score.  (Note: the high performers score is based on what the top 25% of credit union achieve.)
3. Your credit union’s benchmarked score is above the peer high performers score.

Here is how the calculation is performed for each scenario:

Scenario #1:  Your credit union’s benchmarked score is below the peer median score

The minimum goal recommendation is a 75/25 formula with your credit union’s benchmarked score factored in at 75% and the peer average factored in at 25%.  You’ll want to use this goal recommendation if your credit union’s benchmarked score is significantly below the peer median.

The stretch goal recommendation is a 50/50 formula with your credit union’s benchmarked score factored in at 50% and the peer average factored in at 50%.  You’ll want to use this goal recommendation if your credit union Promoter score is within 10 points of the peer median or your Member Effort Score is within 10 basis points of the peer median.

The bias in both formulas is to achieve the median peer score before setting more aggressive goals.

Let’s take a look at the effect of this formula based on two different sets of benchmarked scores.  In the first scenario below, the credit union is significantly below the peer median for its Consumer Loan Experience both for the Promoter and the Member Effort Score.  Even using the 75/25 formula of the minimum goal recommendation, the credit union will have much work to do to meet the goal.  In fact, if the credit union may want to lower the minimum goal even further based on factors unique to its credit union.  Perhaps inadequate staffing for a large volume of applications has led to slow turnaround times, but the credit union does not have a sufficient labor pool in its market to quickly remedy the situation.  The credit union might want to lower the goal until a long-term solution can be found.    

Now look at another credit union’s benchmarked scores.  Again, the credit union’s benchmarked scores are below the peer median, but this time much less significantly.  In this case, the recommended increases are much more modest.  That’s because as credit unions approach the peer median score, gains become much more difficult to achieve.  Low-hanging fruit has probably already been picked off, and the consumer loan process here is much more solid.  Score increases will be modest at this point.

Scenario #2:  Your credit union’s benchmarked score is above the peer median score but below the peer high performers score. 

The minimum goal recommendation increases your benchmarked score by 2% for the Promoter Score and .4% for the Member Effort Score up to the high performers score. 

The stretch goal recommendation increases your benchmarked score by 5% for the Promoter Score and .9% for the Member Effort Score up to the high performers score.

These recommendations may seem fairly conservative, but it is important to remember that once your credit union has reached the peer median score of MemberXP’s credit union users—all of whom are very committed to delivering an exceptional member experience—your credit union is already delivering an above-average experience in the credit union market and quite likely, the retail financial service market overall given that retail bank Promoter and Effort Scores lag credit union scores.

In the example below, the credit union has a New Member Survey Promoter Score of 80.00 and a Member Effort Score of 6.50, placing it between the peer median and peer high performers score for both KPIs.  The assumption built into this calculation is that there is no low-hanging fruit available for improving the experience, and that small refinements will be the path to achieving the peer high performers score. Since the Promoter Score is further from the high performers score, a larger increase is recommended than for the Member Effort Score, which is closer to the high performers score. Read on to discover why the minimum and stretch goal recommendation are the same for the Member Effort Score in the example below.

Scenario #3:  Your credit union’s benchmarked score is above the peer high performer score.

The minimum goal recommendation and the stretch goal recommendation are equal to the high performers score.

Once your credit union has achieved high performer status, your goal should be to maintain current scores or perhaps even accept a slight decrease in the scores.  There are two reasons why.  Both the Promoter Score and the Member Effort Score have upper limits that fall below a perfect score.  It is impossible to achieve a perfect Promoter Score of 100 or a perfect Member Effort Score of 7.00 when a large number of surveys have been deployed given that surveys are submitted by members based on their perceptions and biases.  For example, a few respondents will give a “6” on a 7-point scale even though their experience was good, just because they don’t ever give “perfect” scores.  Others may misinterpret a question.  The Promoter question, in particular, is susceptible to misinterpretation since it asks if the member would recommend the credit union to others.  Some respondents interpret the question quite literally and indicate they would not recommend the credit union because they don’t make recommendations, even though their experience was good.  Finally, some respondents may be biased by a perceived negative experience with the credit union long ago.

The second reason to maintain the current score or even accept a slight decrease is that once a score has reached a certain threshold—typically 80 to 90 for the Promoter Score and 6.5 to 6.6 for the Member Effort Score—any additional gains may come at a very high cost.  For example, a Promoter Score of 90 indicates that nearly all members are Promoters with very few Passives and even fewer Detractors.  The investment it would take to convert those Passives and Detractors to Promoters would be much too high and the efforts much too customized to realize a positive return.  Once your credit union has reached the high performers score, the real challenge will be to maintain an already exceptional member experience through constant monitoring, coaching, process improvement, and innovation.

Using the Goal Calculator Worksheet Without Credit Union Benchmarked Scores

Perhaps your credit union is new to member experience measurement or you’ve deployed a new experience survey type and you don’t have benchmarked data.  Remember that, in general, you’ll want to have at least 50 and ideally at least 100 surveys to establish a benchmark. 

If you’ve downloaded the goal calculator worksheet you’ll find recommendations for initial goals for both the Promoter Score and the Member Effort Score.  The calculator in this worksheet sets a range around the peer median score.  This calculator is based on the idea that your credit union’s initial goal will be to achieve the peer median score of MemberXP’s credit union users—all of whom are very committed to delivering an exceptional member experience and are performing above the retail financial services market.

Considerations for Refining Your Goals

Small, incremental gains are the norm.

Anyone who has been involved in goal setting knows it’s important to set bold goals; however, with member survey scores, it’s also important to recognize that unless you have obvious gaps that can easily be corrected, the gains will happen slowly.  Here’s why. 

With member experience research, you’re measuring member sentiment, and sentiment changes slowly based on past positive or negative experiences.  Think about your own customer experience.  Let’s say you go to a restaurant and the host seats several people who came in later than you did before seating you.  Maybe you get so angry that you walk away.  Your negative sentiment toward the restaurant is high.  However, let’s also say that a friend invites you to the same restaurant so you reluctantly go along.  This time there are new staff members and the service is impeccable.  Your sentiment may have changed slightly for the better, but if you’re like most people, the jury is still out for you.  You’ll reserve your judgment for yet another visit—or maybe several more visits. The same is true for your members.  The Promoter Score, for example, is a lagging indicator of improvement and may take a long time to move, usually 18 to 24 months.

That’s why member experience practice focuses on drivers of KPIs, especially in the implementation phase.  Again, let’s use the restaurant example.  If you receive a survey after your second visit and it asks whether you would recommend the restaurant to others, you may say “not likely” because you’ve only had two experiences—one bad and one good.  On the other hand, if the survey also contains a question such as “How would you rate our service today?” you’ll probably be fair and say the service was very good on that day.  If the restaurant’s owners are concerned with improving the customer experience, they’ll focus on the drivers first, and wait for the Promoter Score needle to move.  MemberXP’s standard survey templates are designed to help credit unions assess both KPIs and drivers.  Drivers are also a great way to measure progress toward member journey improvement goals.

Increases become smaller as you reach the median and high performer thresholds.

It’s worth repeating that when you join MemberXP’s group of member experience-focused credit unions, you’re a part of an elite group of credit unions with better-than-average member experiences.  Reaching the median score is a laudable achievement, and being among the top 25% of users who make up the high performers category is extraordinary.  When you meet or exceed median and then high performers scores, you’re in an elite group of credit unions when it comes to delivering an extraordinary member experience. 

Perfection is not the ideal.

It’s also worth repeating that having a perfect score is not the ideal when it comes to member experience.  Just like having an extremely low delinquency or charge-off ratio might be an indicator of being too conservative in lending, an extremely high member experience score might mean your credit union is spending too much on member care.  As credit unions grow, they can’t afford to adopt time-consuming and resource-intensive methods used by boutique and luxury brands for service delivery. What they can do is deploy technology, streamline processes, and empower employees to make it very easy for members to do business with them.  That’s one of the reasons MemberXP recommends using the actionable Member Effort Score alongside the more sentiment-laden Promoter Score.  It’s also why we recommend looking at the Member Effort Gap for each experience.  Even complex processes like getting a mortgage loan can be great in members’ assessments if you’ve made it easier than they expected. Look for a positive Member Effort Gap score.  It means you are exceeding member expectations for ease of use.

Survey research always includes a margin of error.

Consider building in a margin of error range around your goals.  Metrics such as number of loans closed in a year or number of new members gained are irrefutable.  Survey scores are subject to respondent bias and error, and therefore, must always be considered within a margin of error range. 

Credit union leaders might be pleased to see their Promoter Score increase from a 68 to a 71 over a year’s time only to be disappointed when it slips back down to 69 the next year.  In reality, the score is holding constant within the margin of error.   

You can calculate the margin of error for your benchmarked survey results using this calculator for your credit union’s Promoter Score and this calculator for your credit union’s Member Effort Score. (Links coming.)

Make survey metrics a part of your overall member experience scorecard.

MemberXP has reliable benchmarked data for both the Promoter Score and the Member Effort Score.  These are the two most widely accepted cross-industry metrics for measuring the customer experience.  Both show a high positive correlation with member wallet share.   

However, you may want to consider adding other metrics to your overall member experience scorecard.  Here are some important metrics available via MemberXP.

• New member Promoter and Member Effort Scores
• Problem resolution Promoter and Member Effort Scores
• Employee Engagement Score
• Individual Performer Score
• Young Adult Promoter and Member Effort Scores
• Digital channel (mobile, online, and contact center) Promoter and Member Effort Scores

In addition, you may want to add these metrics from your CRM or other systems.

• Member wallet share as measured by account per member or accounts per household
• Member profitability
• Member churn rate and/or member attrition rate
• Number of accounts within the first 90 days of membership
• Wait times across all delivery channels
• Social media reviews

Your unique credit union external environment and resources play a role.

While MemberXP’s peer data, especially when combined with your credit union’s own benchmarked data, can help you set achievable stretch goals, your credit union’s external environment and resources should always be a part of your goal-setting considerations.  For example, if your credit union has a below-median score for its mobile experience, but an app upgrade is not in the budget for the next year, it’s unlikely you’ll see any movement in that score.  Always consider your credit union’s unique opportunities and challenges to set realistic goals.