eSwitchKit enhancements

Here is the latest on the new developments we’ve added to the eSwitchKit. We didn’t sit on our haunches after the launch; we’ve already made some improvements.

One of the most important portions of the new eSwitchKit is the real-time status checklist that’s created for the member to use throughout the switching process. A major upgrade we’ve just implemented is the ability for the member to re-send switch emails and/or to print switch letters at any time, via their personalized online switching checklist.

For member convenience, we’ve also added an “Already fill a switch kit out?” login area on the first page of the eSwitchKit. Just in case they’ve lost their email with the login link, or can’t access their email, they can still log in and view their checklist to see the status of their switches. We’ve also implemented a password retrieval system in case they don’t have that info handy.

If you are demo’ing the eSwitchKit, then in order to experience the eSwitchKit’s full capability, be sure to input your email address as well as create a username and password. After doing so, you’ll feel the same hand-holding experience your members will be receiving. You’ll get a copy of all of the secure emails, along with the most important email; the email guiding the member to their secure and personalized eSwitchKit checklist. If you’re interested in the eSwitchKit’s full capability, be sure to complete this step. There isn’t another switch kit in the country like it.

Why is the personalized eSwitchKit checklist important?

1. In one convenient spot for the member, they have a record of every company that has been informed of the switch, and can check it at any time to see the real-time status of each company that has, or has not, replied to the notification.
2. The secure emails sent to companies have specialized replies pre-written within the email that use radio button technology. The vendor selects an answer and that answer is instantly updated on the checklist.
3. The member can stay in the know at all times concerning their account switches and they can re-send and re-print the switch emails and letters any time they need to.
4. The receiving company can send notes back to the members via the secure emails and the notes will appear in real-time on the checklist.

Click here to demo the eSwitchKit.

We are also extremely pleased to announce that already six credit unions have signed on to the eSwitchKit in less than three weeks. Welcome aboard Pam Griffiths and the Railroad & Industrial FCU team as well as Malinda Warchus and the Electric Service CU team.

Announcing the innovative new eSwitchKit!

EverythingCU.com is thrilled to announce an innovative new breakthrough in making it easy for your new members to switch their previous accounts over to your CU! Our new eSwitchKit makes switching incredibly easy via secure email and organized with a personalized online checklist that both your member and your credit union can monitor for real-time status updates.

Making the switch to your credit union has never been easier with our new eSwitchKit!

See for yourself how easy and convenient it is by trying out the Demo!

The eSwitchKit makes it easy for your member (or your MSRs to help your members) switch their previous accounts over to your credit union. The member’s information only needs to be entered one time, and the correct information is then sent to each vendor involved in the process, including Employer for Direct Deposit, previous Financial Institution for close account instructions, and for every ACH/Automatic Payment vendor as well as any vendors making automatic withdrawals via Debit Card.

The member is in control every step of the way, being able to decide which of these organizations are to receive account numbers, which organizations are to receive secure email communications, and which organizations are to receive printed and mailed letters.

• The most innovative switch kit in the industry brings the member an active, real time checklist with email alerts keeping the process top of mind and organized
• The member and credit union can access a Switching Checklist providing an up-to-the-second look at each step of the switch
• Member is alerted via email whenever a vendor responds with switching updates
• Full admin controls enables you to help your members through any sticking points
• SSAE 16 compliance and industry-standard 128-bit encryption
• Vendors can send messages back to the member in regards to switch status and details
• The eSwitchKit is the latest innovation from the same company that brought you the original Online Switch Kit in 2004 and Premium Online Switch Kit in 2011. More than 100 CUs nationwide employ these Switch Kits that have helped more than 23,000 members switch to their credit union

If you are currently using the Original or Premium Switch Kit and would like to upgrade, please contact me for your prorated upgrade pricing; via email: morriss@everythingcu.com or call me direct at 413-535-0621. For more information about the eSwitchKit or to place an order, visit the eSwitchKit Info/Sales page.

Initial feedback has been positive; feel free to let us know your thoughts and comments about this new concept in helping members make the switch to your CU!

Happy switching!

Bank Transfer Day is a beautiful thing!

Wow, all the publicity over Bank Transfer Day is so fantastic for all EverythingCU’ers! We’re also thrilled to be getting a flood of new inquiries about our Online Switch Kit lately… including being mentioned on CUESnet. We’ve been helping people switch from a bank to a credit union for 8 years, so it’s fun to see this getting such great attention from mainstream media.

I just spotted this ABC News clip being shared by a CU on Facebook:

The CU shown towards the end of the clip, where the young man makes the switch, is Charlotte Metro CU. They use a set of static PDFs to help people make the switch. ABC News reports this takes 12 minutes. Imagine how much faster it would be if they used EverythingCU’s Online Switch Kit!

Props to the more than 100 CUs who are already making it easier for their members! If you already have our Switch Kit, today is a great day to take another look at it and make sure everything is working perfectly with it.

Helping new members make the switch

Online Switch Kits continue to get excellent media coverage. Today, I received an email newsletter from the Northwest Credit Union Association (serving credit unions in Oregon and Washington), and was tickled to see an article on Switch Kits featured. The article is titled Can Switch Kits Increase New Member Satisfaction?

It was particularly happy for me to see this article appear in that trade publication since EverythingCU’s Online Switch Kit was born out of a session I attended at a 2002 CUES conference held in Seattle. There was a breakout session called Switch Kits presented by a credit union marketer from Pinellas County FCU. This breakout session was packed to standing room only. At that time, not many people were thinking about the online world, so it just seemed natural to me to create an online version of what they were writing out by hand, and thus the EverythingCU Online Switch Kit was born.

One point of pride for us with our Online Switch Kit: Since EverythingCU.com serves only credit unions, we have only credit unions as clients of this product. Therefore, the EverythingCU.com Online Switch Kit will NEVER help a person make the switch from a credit union to a bank…. only the “correct” direction, and that is from a bank to a credit union. We do have competitors, but as far as I know, none of them can make this claim.

If you aren’t one of the 112 credit unions already using the Online Switch Kit, what are you waiting for? If you are one, then thank you for your continued patronage and we hope you are seeing terrific usage from it by your new members!

It doesn’t take an Act of Congress…

We here at EverythingCU are thrilled that there is renewed, extra interest in helping more and more people leave their megaBanks (like BofA), and join their local credit union. I just ran across this article on the Bold Progressives web site, where they are calling for signatures to help pass legislation:

Bold Progressives: Petition Congress to make it easier to switch

Of course, if you already have EverythingCU.com’s online switch kit, you know that it doesn’t take an Act of Congress to make it easier to switch.

If you don’t already have it, find out what 111 other credit unions have discovered– you can make it easier to gain new members by making it easier for them to make the switch….. without waiting for the gridlock of Washington to untangle. (That might be a very long wait… don’t hold your breath!)

Some D&B love from TJ McCue

I was introduced to TJ McCue through a referral from William Azaroff. TJ is an awesome, sharp, well-connected professional, and it was my pleasure to meet him for coffee in his home area of the Olympic Peninsula outside Seattle, on the way to BarCampBankBC. TJ now writes for Dun & Bradstreet’s AllBusiness blog, and was kind enough to do a write-up about our online switch kit yesterday.

Earlier this summer, Dan Reynolds, our Switch Kit Coordinator, conducted a webinar explaining what the EverythingCU Online Switch Kit is all about, as well as our latest innovations with it. I’ve converted that webinar into a SlideShare with audio which you can view below. Running time is approximately 49 minutes (about 25 minutes of presentation, followed by about 24 minutes of Q&A). If you don’t have that kind of time, fortunately we have a text FAQ located here.

Our Online Switch Kit came about as the direct result of attending our first-ever CU conference, which was the 2002 CUES Marketing conference in Seattle. The VP of Marketing for Pinellas County FCU (now Achieva) demonstrated her paper-based switch kit to a standing-room only audience during a breakout session. We knew that we’d have a hit on our hands if we developed a way of simplifying the process of filling out a member’s name over and over again, online. So we built the product in 2003, and now have more than 170 credit unions using it.

Part of the reason TJ wrote up our case study is that he understands how much power there is in developing a targeted product to a specific niche audience. Here are my takeaways from this journey (which you can apply to your own business):

• Decide on your niche, and get to know as much possible about it, especially the the people and happenings therein
• Go out and meet them where they are (in this case, their conferences, but it can also be their place of work, or where they live or socialize)
• Pay close attention to their needs and what resonates with them
• Figure out how you can help make their own lives (or their customers’ lives, if it’s B-to-B), easier. If they don’t even know they have a problem or pain-point yet, so much the better.
• Create the product that solves or eases this problem or pain-point.
• When you do all of these things, word will spread amongst that community.

Thanks, TJ, for a stellar write-up of the product!

Your members are talking. Are you listening?

I’ve had the pleasure of delivering World 2.0 workshops to both the New York State Credit Union League, and the Georgia Marketing Council. In both of these workshops, one of the things we covered is the new communication service called Twitter. I’m sure that attendees never dreamed when coming to the workshop that they would sign up and learn about something called “Twitter”. Right now, there are between 350,000 and 700,000 people using it (accurate figures are difficult to get). Many of these people are artists, solopreneurs, bloggers, social media gurus, and Gen Yers, but more and more people are discovering this service every day. If you’re not yet familiar with twitter, it’s like an open instant messaging service. It’s a quick and convenient way to connect with old and new friends online. It’s easy to make new friends, and now, using Twellow, to find other people all over the world who share a common interest with you.

What does this have to do with credit unions and marketing, you may ask? Twitter is akin to an always-on, free focus group. If you follow your members on Twitter, you can get an open look at the issues that are relevant to them. This morning, I read my twitter stream as someone I followed, “Pistachio,” expressed her extreme dissatisfaction with Bank of America. Here are her tweets:

Pistachio 6/30 11:18 pm Bank of America’s check-clearing policies are predatory and should be investigated by congress. They get your money right away and sit on it

A friend replied 7/1 8:32 am: How long do they hold the check?

Pistachio 7/1 10:25 am BOA routinely holds checks 5-10 days w/very shaky “reasons,” often not telling you @deposit. they collect hundreds in “overdraft”

a different friend replied 7/1 10:49 am: i think you’ll be hard-pressed to find a bank that doesn’t. try calling your mgr to get the hold removed; they usually will.

Pistachio 7/1 11:22 am Citizens’ holds are a fraction of BOAs. Thanks for tip, will call. Think I’m SOL once hold is on, from past exp. I should’ve asked

Pistachio 7/1 11:39 am You know, I’m actually not kidding that Bank of America should be investigated. They’ve crossed a line from crap customer service to abusive

Pistachio 7/1 11:39 And YES, I’m well on my way to moving all my accounts away from them.

These “tweets” elicited at least a couple of responses from her friends. More importantly, Pistachio is highly connected, and has 4,375 followers. Yes, you read that correctly, she has four thousand, three hundred seventy-five people who are reading what she types.

Now I’m guessing that there are currently no credit union marketing professionals “following” Pistachio. Fortunately I am, and am also friends with several credit union marketing professionals in the Greater Boston area. I tweeted a response to her, with the name of a credit union where a friend of mine works, and I also tweeted that that credit union offers EverythingCU.com’s Online Switch Kit, a product which makes it easy for new members to switch their account from their previous financial institution to the credit union.

Impact: If this frustrated Bank of America customer has a good experience joining a credit union, and “twitters” her relief from the outrageous fees and outlandish check hold policies, the marketing/new business impact is LARGE. Four thousand of her friends and colleagues will know about it. This is more valuable than sending postcards to 4000 people for three main reasons: She is a trusted friend to her followers, and anything she tweets on the subject is not coming from someone who is trying to sell something. Also, the pass-along value is much greater since it’s easier to “re-tweet” a message to others than it is to share a postcard with your neighbor. Also, the cost to tweet with your members is only your time, whereas the cost to supervise, design, print and mail 4000 postcards would be around $5000 or more.

Take Action: Monitor your credit union’s name using Google Alerts, and search in Summize, but also monitor your competition’s name (and the word ‘bank’), watching for those disgruntled bank customers who are just begging for the fresh alternative that your credit union provides.

O, Canada!

There are now two exciting new developments in EverythingCU.com’s Online Switch Kit. Three months ago we added a Spanish-language version to make it easy for Spanish-speaking potential members to join a credit union. Last month we converted the Online Switch Kit to work north of the border for our friends in Canada. We’re delighted to announce that our first Canadian Credit Union has signed on, from the beautiful province of Prince Edward Island.

If you are a current Online Switch Kit client, and you haven’t visited it in a while, check out your new stats page for a much more detailed report of your members’ usage of it.

Something positive always comes out of conferences

Okay, I will admit it. Adam Lueb and I are crashing CUNA GAC 2008. We are not invited. We are not official conference goers. We are not exhibitors. But we love our CU peeps so much we made the trek down just to hang with them. When you are a small company, such as we are, it is a risk to come all this way, take time out of two employees busy schedules, and pay for meals, transportation, lodging, etc. So is it worth it?

The answer is a resounding yes. I’ve found that nearly always something positive happens when you do any or all of the following: break your normal patterns, go visit your peeps, understand your customers’ world better, facilitate getting smart people together, make new connections, and/or reinforce existing connections.

Over on OpenSourceCU, some are questioning the ROI of attending a BarCampBank. I have no response to that, other than, if you can’t see the value in meeting smart, creative, passionate people who are willing to learn and share what they know about the leading edge of the industry, then you definitely should not attend.

Tonight, Adam and I hooked up with Robbie Wright of MaPS Credit Union in Salem, Oregon. Last July, Robbie invited me to attend BarCampBank Seattle just a few days before it was about to occur. By chance, I was in Spokane at the time consulting with a CU there, instead of at my usual home base in Western Massachusetts. I had never heard of a BarCamp nor BarCampBank, and after checking out the wiki page for it, didn’t want to rearrange my schedule to hop over to Seattle for the weekend rather than return home to my son whom I hadn’t seen in many days. While I love my son dearly, I am still kicking myself that I did not attend that first BarCampBank in the U.S. when I had the opportunity.

Returning to the present, at Adam’s suggestion, we headed over to Washington DC’s Chinatown for Tony Cheng’s Mongolian Barbecue earlier this evening. While enjoying the fabulous dinner, Adam and Rob got to talking tech stuff. It turns out that Rob faces the same challenge we do in wrangling the NCUA 5300 data on all 8000+ CUs in the U.S. into shape every quarter when it is published. Rob asked Adam if he would be interested if his CUSO developed a way by which we could import it in the blink of an eye, andweimmediatelyansweredYES. So now Rob has direct feedback of the usefulness of a potential product, and we now have a potential source for a process that sidetracks us from more relevant work for a significant amount of time each year. This conversation would not have occured had I not invited Adam to come to DC with me.

As an additional bonus, we discussed briefly the online switch kit that EverythingCU offers to make it easy for a member to switch their previous financial institution to the credit union, and realized that MaPS CU is not offering it to their members. Talking with Rob has reminded me who the person at his CU would be the one to evaluate the product, I’ve sent her an email about it.

This trip is already worth it, and we’ve only connected with one person so far and haven’t even gotten to the main event; the reason why we’re here, the TwittaBloggerSocial MeetUp.

Online Switch Kit now en Español

The EverythingCU.com team has been working hard for the past several months cooking up a new twist on one of our most popular products. Our Online Switch Kit is currently being utilized by 160 credit unions in the United States. Next Thursday, Jan. 10, Dan Reynolds and I will be holding a FREE webinar to announce and explain our new addition to this product: the Spanish version of the Online Switch Kit. If your credit union has Spanish-speaking members, you can now offer them the ease of switching over to you, in their native language.

Many people don’t realize that Hispanics are now the largest minority group in the United States. There are approximately 35 million people who consider themselves Hispanic, and there are approx. 28 million Spanish-speakers. This actually means that the U.S. has the fifth-largest Hispanic population in the world.

What is the purpose of the Online Switch Kit? Your members would love to do more of their financial business with your CU, and your potential members would love to join your CU, but it’s a big hassle for them to uproot from their bank. EverythingCU.com’s Online Switch Kit makes it simple and easy for them to make the switch to your credit union.

I’m really looking forward to this free webinar and answering everyone’s questions about this cool product that helps credit unions attract more members. We already have credit union professionals from Washington state, California, New York, Maryland, Delaware, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin signed up to learn more about it. We just announced the webinar, and sign-ups are going strong!

Update: New webinar sign-ups have come in from New Jersey, Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, South Carolina, Texas, Iowa, Indiana, Oregon, Utah, Arizona, and Illinois. This is going to be fun…can’t wait!