USAA ... The Disney of Banking?

As a life rule, many people ask, "What would Jesus do?"  As a marketer, I typically ask myself, "What would Walt do?"  As bankers, we should all ask, "What would USAA do?"

In 2006 I left a Marketing role at a credit union and came to MarketMatch. Still, 7 years later, I'm a fiercely loyal CU member. They have my mortgage, home equity, 2 auto loans, checking, savings, credit card and some investments. But when I decide to leave, I'm going taking my accounts to USAA.

I have USAA home and auto insurance and, to me, they are the Disney of banking. Maybe that's why, in a 2011 Forrester report, USAA was found to lead our industry with 3.5 products per member, with Navy Federal Credit Union close behind with 3.1.

How can you see these kind of results?

Focus on Service, but Don't Forget Sales

USAA averages 3.5 products per member while Wells Fargo, a sales machine, "only" has 2.6 products per customer. What's up with that? In my opinion it's a slight deviation of focus.

I've shopped many a Wells Fargo for clients all over the country and they have an outstanding sales model.  USAA, on the other hand, has an outstanding SERVICE model.

I've been a USAA member for 19 years and in that time, I've NEVER met a single employee face-to-face. Yet, I still consider them the greatest service company that I do business with.

The USAA Way: Like Disney, the primary driver is the member experience. Focus every single member interaction on service first! Service leads to trust and trust leads to sales. Then ask simple questions at every interaction and suggest products related to individual responses. It's that simple. The unspoken steps here are: 1) Listen and 2) Care!

Bundle Products
Customers often walk in the door or come to your web site inquiring about a product.  The successful institutions don't focus on one product at a time, they focus on clusters.

Here are some examples:
Debit cards, online banking and e-statements are not "cross sells" to a checking account, they are access points and should be as assumed as ordering checks.

As soon as your customer closes on that mortgage and moves in, they're going to start filling their new house with ... new stuff!  Help them by bundling a credit card with every mortgage. If they're good for $100,000+, they're also good for a couple extra grand on a credit card. And it should go without saying that your mortgage customers should have an automatic referral to any insurance offerings.

Every single commercial account has a decision maker with a personal account. Do you have them both?  How can you package the two to give you an advantage?


Blowup the Silos

I have a client who, when talking about referrals from the mortgage department to retail, is concerned about getting the customer's "permission" to call. What I sometimes need to remind them is that customers don't bank with a department, they bank with an institution.

Rarely does someone bank with XYZ Mortgage, or ABC Insurance ... they are going to XYZ Credit Union or ABC Bank.

What USAA does REALLY well is communicate internally. My auto insurance contacts may not have all the answers about retail checking, but they're certainly not shy about asking me if I'm interested.

Many of you offer a lot of products. I'm not saying that every employee has to be an expert on every product, but they should know everything that you have to offer and know how to get someone to the right contact within one transfer.

When you want to focus on improving what you do, spend some time at USAA.com.  Look at their Life Stages or their Advice Center.  Notice, though they likely offer a lot more services than you do, how simple their website is to navigate.


Think about it.  USAA has 3.5 products per member among more than 9 million members ... and no branches! They are killing us and they only have the computer and phone to build a relationship. Imaging what we could do with our world-class, face-to-face interactions if we took a few pages from USAA's playbook. We could become the most magical banking place on earth.

Read More

• Lessons From 100 Branch Experiences
• Disney Service in your Branches
• $#*! Bankers Say

We bring these marketing philosophies to credit unions and community banks nationwide, and would love to bring them to your institution too.  Contact us to see how.

With nearly 195,000 visits worldwide, we hope that you enjoy this blog.  If you find it helpful, please share it with your colleagues.  Also, check out our YouTube Channel for short video blogs about financial marketing.  

MarketMatch is also a nationally and internationally requested speaker.  Contact us to bring our marketing ideas to your next conference.

Here are the conferences where you can find MarketMatch.

See our story here. (click)

Chat with me LIVE! (click)

Or email me directly (click)

937-426-9848

Weave the Web ... Draw the Flies

A lone spider in a swarm of flies, but no web, starves.

We had the pleasure of spending part of our week with a new client.  In many of our new engagements, we start with a “Discovery Phase,” where we analyze the client’s financials, product usage, branch experience, corporate culture, competition and markets.  This particular client was not uncommon.

As marketers, conventional wisdom says that it is our job to drive traffic.  That’s because we are the “great communicators.”  And to be honest, I can’t disagree.

But, because we are the great communicators, it is also our job to manage internal communication.

While we have a ton of data yet to collect and analyze for our new client before seeing the whole picture, it is obvious that, given their corporate culture, the focus should be on internal communication before we pursue external initiatives.  In short … weave the web BEFORE we draw the flies.

Holes in the web allow prey to fly right by.  Here's what you can do.

Connect the parts: Like a spider web, your corporate structure needs to be tightly woven together.  If you have gaps in your branch network or between business units, you’ll miss opportunities. 

Look at all of your branches.  Do any of them feel forgotten or on an island?  If your corporate location is the “main office,” what are the rest of your branches … minor?

Do your business units have the best interest of the entire organization at heart or are they focused on their individual goals.  Do you have “mortgage customers” or “bank customers / credit union members”?  There is a HUGE difference.  How about referrals?  Can your tellers identify a proper Wealth Management prospect, for instance?  Do they know what to ask in order to qualify them?  Do they want to?

I don’t care if it takes a truckload of TNT … blow up the silos!  Get every corporate entity reading from the same playbook, looking out for each other’s interests and communicating.  An employee doesn’t need to be proficient in every product from every business line, but they should have a basic knowledge of what each product is, who would benefit from them and who they can contact quickly to get help.

Consistency:  A successful web is evenly disbursed from top to bottom.  And the fly will get treated the same no matter which part they fall into.

Think about it.  McDonald's didn’t become the world’s largest food chain because they are gourmet.  They are successful because you know what to expect.  A Big Mac tastes the same in Ohio, Florida or Florence, Italy.

The same should be said of your branches.  I should get treated the same at the corporate location as I do at your smallest, most rural branch – or your largest, busiest branch. 

You can accomplish this through tight, consistent hiring standards and a well communicated and demonstrated corporate culture.  You can also assure consistency with ongoing training and uniform sales tools across the institution.  Set service standards that become the backbone of your culture and that every employee must live up to.

Review, Repair, Rebuild: For the last month or so, I’ve been watching a spider on my back porch.  Every 2-3 days, this little sucker is repairing or completely rebuilding her web. 

It’s basic nature that things change.  Through market conditions or internal factors, gaps may open in your web.  Create a process to review the web periodically to determine if areas need to be reconnected or if changes are so great that we need to reconfigure the whole darn thing to catch the most opportunities.

If you focus on drawing flies before the web is sound, you’re going to miss a lot of opportunity and experience wasted effort, resources and budget. 

First, weave the web – then draw the flies.

For a case study from a community bank in Lawrenceburg, KY, click here.

With more than 130,000 visits worldwide, we hope that you enjoy this blog.  If you find it helpful, please share it with your colleagues.  Also, check out our YouTube Channel for short video blogs about financial marketing.  

We bring these marketing philosophies to community banks and credit unions nationwide, and would love to bring them to your institution too.  Contact us to see how.

MarketMatch is also a nationally and internationally requested speaker.  Contact us to bring our marketing ideas to your next conference.

Here are the conferences where you can find MarketMatch.

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MarketMatch is a marketing firm, dedicated to the credit union and community banking community.  We utilize knowledge-based strategies to help you FOCUS on the right story that will generate the greatest  MOMENTUM and prove the best RESULTS with our written ROI Guarantee.

See our story here. (click)

Chat with me LIVE! (click)

Or email me directly (click)

937-426-9848

Breaking Down the Silos

When we talk to bankers and credit union professionals from around the country, we often sit down with our client's business unit leaders. And what we often find is a series of banks within banks. For example, the mortgage department knows their products inside and out. They can tell you what money is available for first-time homebuyers or if there are any government programs that can help you with your down payment. They can quote you the 30-year fixed rate for an average credit rating with no problem-- but they likely can't tell you a 10-year CD rate.

Too often, institutions are operating in silos ... like mini-banks inside of banks. There are HUGE opportunities being lost in the branches with our existing customers.

So, what can we do about it. I think it falls on Marketing. Not "marketing" as external messaging (necessarily), but Marketing as an internal communication conduit.

I believe the sledge hammer to the walls of these silos is knowledge. We shouldn't expect all employees to know every aspect about every bank product ... but they MUST know the product exists, how to identify prospects and who to contact to help the customer out.

If you want to break down the silos you need to set up processes to:

• Know who each departments best customers are and what they look like
• Better communicate with the customer to identify their needs
• Have a process, not to refer, but to facilitate a conversation with inter-departmental experts

Want to learn more? Join our FREE Brown Bag webinar this Friday at 1:00 est.

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Take care,

Eric