One Of Many Ways For Management To Add Value To The Strategic Planning Process
June 28, 2012
Front-line staff members are the first line of defense with an unsatisfied member, and are also the first line of offense with respect to communicating the credit union’s marketing messages. Routinely, credit unions identify themselves as “member-focused” or “service-oriented”—both of these identifiers lean very heavily on member experience, which is in turn influenced by the experience those members have with your front-line staff.
As the second calendar quarter is closing, and credit unions are beginning to formulate plans for next year’s strategies and goals, gathering input from the front-line staff can enhance the process.
Consider brief, but direct, surveys of those employees who deal with member concerns every day. Some valuable questions include:
- What is the top member complaint that you receive?
- How does this complaint typically get resolved?
- If it were up to only you, how would you solve it?
- What three things take up the majority of your time during the day?
- Of those three things, which do you think provides the most value to the membership, and why?
However these surveys are conducted, ensure that controls are in place that promote candid feedback. Set a participation goal for your staff, such as 95% response, and tie the goal to a credit union sponsored pizza lunch some Friday during the summer.
Most importantly, take steps to ensure that the participating staff realize that their responses were heard by management, and did not disappear into some “survey vortex” where there is no perceived value from their time filling out the surveys. It is amazing what information a couple slices of pizza and a receptive management team can elicit from front-line staff, and their input could be invaluable in spurring discussion on plans for the future.