Posted on Leave a comment

Birthday Greetings From Capital One

I am faithful to my credit union…to a point.  I do all my “banking” at my credit union unless they give me a reason not to.   Interest rates are low everywhere but they have been particularly low at my credit union so I opened up an ING Direct Account years ago to hold the majority of my cash deposits.  ING Direct sold out to Capital One and now they are my other financial institution…yes Capital One, the grey behemoth of a bank.

I recently had a birthday and Capital One sent me a Jib Jab email with singing presidents (except for Ben):  Washington, Lincoln, Jackson and Franklin.  I know that no one at Capital One knows me and the message had no personal warmth behind it, but it still made me smile.  My image of Capital One became briefly a fuzzy cute behemoth.

The question that came to my mind was why didn’t my credit union send me a birthday greeting?   There are people at the credit union who know me and like me and I like them.  They have much more information about me than Capital One.   They have the technology to send all sorts of marketing material to me, why not a nice birthday message?    I told my credit union about this and they said that they were already in the process of making this happen.

I am not a prima donna about my birthday.  My issue is that credit unions are being beaten at their own warm and fuzzy game.   Credit union staff no longer interacts daily with all the members on the factory floor.  New members do not have a history of family loyalty to a credit union.   In the warm and fuzzy race, credit unions do not have a head start with most members.

Credit unions are sitting on a treasure trove of personal information that they can and should use to connect with members; to communicate timely and relevant information that is important to a particular member or the demographic of particular members.     The analysis and use of big data is critical to the long term survival of any financial services provider, including credit unions.   The use of big data enables large financial institutions to have a more intimate knowledge of its customers’ financial needs and personal preferences than a credit union could ever hope to achieve without the use of big data.

So my recommendation to credit unions is to get on the big data bandwagon sooner rather than later and you can start with just wishing each of your members a happy birthday.  That simple gesture will help credit unions connect with all their members and win the warm and fuzzy race.

Guru

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Guy A. Messick, The CUSO Guru, is an attorney with Messick & Lauer PC in Media, PA and General Counsel to NACUSO.  He can be reached at 610-891-9000 or guy.messick@gmail.com