Our History
In 1995, company founder Constance Anderson got involved in helping a small group of credit unions advertise their services. With a marketing degree and a background in corporate marketing, she was surprised to learn about the amazing work that these financial cooperatives were doing. But she was also dismayed to find few of the people she met had ever heard of a credit union.
Inspired by that small group of credit union leaders, Anderson wrote the original marketing textbook for credit unions, Credit Union Marketing with a Strategic Focus. The book was published in 1995 by The Credit Union National Association as part of its Credit Union Certified Executive curriculum. With its publication Anderson got to know thousands of credit union champions who agreed that credit unions would need to develop professional marketing departments and real marketing budgets to get the word out.
And get the word out, they did! Ten years later even the smallest of credit unions had marketing plans and most had marketing professionals onboard.
That’s how a startup called MemberShoppers.com was founded. In 2007, Anderson realized that credit unions needed actionable, affordable research to back up their marketing strategies. That year, she and a small team developed the first credit union-specific mystery shopping program, MemberShoppers. In true cooperative spirit, they fostered the idea that members themselves could provide the best feedback. From its original 3 beta-test credit unions, MemberShoppers grew to serve over 80 credit unions, making it the country’s largest credit union mystery shopping provider.
Our comprehensive, omnichannel Member Experience Suite followed in 2014, but we’ve never lost sight of our original mission.