First Mark Credit Union
By Joyce Moed, Reporter

First Mark – Best practices for 1) Product Design 2) Standardization

Product Design:

SAN ANTONIO, Texas–After doing a product review, First Mark Credit Union leaders said they noticed the CU was missing opportunities in the area of Holiday Club Accounts.

"What we did is we looked to see how they were doing," said Blake Griffin, assistant vice president of product development for First Mark CU.

So First Mark introduced a new Holiday Club Account in December 2006, featuring a unique Visa Gift Card feature. When members save money in a Holiday Club Account, they get the opportunity to receive up to five Visa Gift Cards after the account matures.

The goal was to create a win-win situation for both the credit union and its members. For the credit union: it receives needed deposits, allows for the opportunity to promote its gift cards and deepens the CU/member relationship. For the members: they are able to receive five free gift cards.

The gift cards are usually available at a cost of $2.50 each.

"We waived the first five fees. We also increased the rate so it was a little more competitive," Griffin said. "It really made our members think about a holiday-club account, and think about it differently."

As of June 2007, the credit union had 343 accounts with a combined deposit balance of more than $100,000. At the same time the previous year, it had 105 accounts with a combined deposit balance of about $33,000.

"We tripled it," Griffin said.

Griffin said considering the CU’s large membership, "we still didn’t have a lot opening these accounts, but it’s better."

"We are going to continue to do this," he said.

Standardization:

First Mark CU created the position of "branch operations analyst" for the purpose of implementing a standardization program at the branch level aimed at reducing variations in processes, which ultimately impact efficiency, consistency, quality, service, member loyalty, and profitability.

The goals of the branch operations analyst are to coordinate and create standardization across and within branches. The employee also works with key frontline personnel and branch managers in analyzing and assessing whether current processes meet established member-service and quality standards, while complying with applicable regulations.

The responsibilities of the position include: observing and identifying all current processes at each branch; establishing meaningful metrics to monitor branch processes and identifying the nature and causes of variances, errors, policies, and monetary losses; developing new and reviewing current processes to insure regulatory compliance; analyzing business or operating procedures to devise more efficient methods of accomplishing work; performing systematic and continual operational-effectiveness reviews to ensure standardization across all branches; ensuring branches are operating in a consistent and compliant manner with minimal variation in processes or services between each location; documenting and presenting findings and conclusions for new or modifications to existing processes; increasing employee engagement and helping to foster a continuous improvement environment by actively encouraging frontline staff to share ideas or input on best practices, successes and challenges; and facilitating implementation of new processes and procedures through staff meetings, written communication and other appropriate documentation.

Since the new position was created the following areas have been reviewed:
New Account Accuracy Ratios: percentage of accounts with new errors at opening started at 63% in June of 2007, and as of June 2007 accuracy stands at 96%;

New Hire Indoctrination Process (employee surveys that are answered by new hires to let us know how the CU did in welcoming them–a perfect score would be 75.) This began at 29.02 and is now at 51.71;

Senior teller audits: since the audits have been implanted, there have been three perfect audits from the CU’s external auditors.