Beyond member feedback, finding new avenues for garnering constructive input on ways your organization can improve the member experience can be challenging. As a credit union professional, you may feel as though you have turned over every proverbial rock looking for insights you can turn into action.
Well, member feedback isn't the only source of valuable information you can use to improve the member experience and gain customer experience insights. Too often, credit unions overlook the importance of their employees' points of view in providing insights for improvement.
No one knows your members like your employees. After all, the people working within your organization are on the frontlines, engaging with members daily to resolve problems and celebrate big and small wins. Creating an established Voice of Employee (VoE) program can help you turn the unique insights of your employees into data you can act on to create an overall better member experience. It can also help bolster a sense of ownership and pride on the part of employees in your credit union.
"Voice of Employee" refers to the participation of employees in influencing organizational decision-making to help bring about or drive change within your credit union. "Program" indicates the establishment of a robust method for monitoring employee feedback and performance.
Unlike with a Voice of Member (VoM) program, your employees' feedback is not just limited to the financial products and services your credit union offers. You can - and should - expand your VoE program to include feedback areas for improving your credit union as well.
Members feel a sense of pride and ownership in their credit union. As they should – credit unions are owned and controlled by their members. However, it's also important to acknowledge that employees also have a sense of pride and ownership in the organization. Many employees are members themselves and take pride in helping fellow members achieve their financial goals.
A successful VoE program not only improves the member experience, but it can also improve the employee experience. A VoE program gives employees a voice in how the credit union is run and allows them to effect change for the better. This not only empowers employees but also instills in them a sense of value and importance. When employees feel valued, it creates a positive ripple effect, impacting member interactions and overall organizational culture.
Creating a culture that values employee input and actively solicits feedback makes employees feel heard and bolsters their sense of pride and ownership in the credit union. This instills a sense of responsibility and accountability, leading to increased employee engagement, job satisfaction, and retention rates. With the right VoE program, employees are not just working for a paycheck. Instead, they are working towards a shared goal of creating an exceptional member experience, building a stronger credit union, and making a positive impact in the community.
Beyond establishing the necessary framework for garnering and monitoring feedback, a successful VoE program depends on an actively engaged base of employees willing to participate. An organization must demonstrate that employee input is valued, and the process for providing their insights is easy-to-use and effective. Keep these tips in mind whether you have an active VoE program or are just getting yours off the ground:
By creating a successful VoE program that values and acts upon customer experience insights from employees, credit unions can unlock the potential to create a better member experience while also fostering a sense of ownership and pride in their employees.
As organizations get serious about creating a VoE program, many invest in SaaS providers that can help quantify and measure employee performance and monitor employee feedback. These tools can help uncover customer experience insights that might otherwise be missed. MemberXP is one such provider built explicitly for credit unions.
As a SaaS provider, MemberXP offers a range of listening tools, including Voice of Employee, which measures internal employee experience at almost every touchpoint and captures their perceptions of each behavior of service delivery at every channel. With this tool, you can gain valuable insights into how your employees view the member experience and identify areas where they believe improvements are needed.
In addition, the Voice of Employee tool regularly solicits employee feedback with easy-to-use, hassle-free surveys that employees can complete on any smart device. This helps ensure that your employees feel valued and that their feedback is being heard.
Voice of Employee also includes coaching, training, and support. Your employee coaches will learn how to share results with their teams and create meaningful, actionable internal service improvement plans. By leveraging these insights and taking action to address employee feedback, you can create a culture of continuous improvement and deliver an exceptional member experience.
Credit unions can significantly benefit from creating a successful Voice of Employee (VoE) program that values and acts upon customer experience insights from employees. Employees are the ones who engage with members every day, so why not share in their unique insights to improve the overall member experience? By leveraging these insights and taking action to address employee feedback, credit unions can create a culture of continuous improvement and deliver an exceptional member experience.
