Three Tips for Heading Off a Digital Banking Conversion Nightmare

It’s among credit union teams’ worst nightmares: The digital banking conversion that was designed to improve the member experience fails—locking users out of their accounts, not showing balances, making wire transfer features inaccessible.

It happened to a $25 billion bank in the Midwest. It happened to a prominent credit union in the Southeast. And it will happen again.

For a project that is arguably the most visible one a financial institution will ever pursue, the stakes couldn’t be higher, especially this year. In the fallout of Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse, consumers became on edge. We’re living in a world where trust can snap overnight, and social media has no off-hours. For credit union teams, this means it’s more critical than ever to maintain member confidence.

A credit union can change its lending system. It can change its core system. But when it changes its digital banking system with all the connected ancillary systems, it’s messing with users’ cheese—where they go to log in to their digital banking platforms—and this has the biggest impact.

At Cornerstone Advisors, we’ve seen some stuff go wrong (and right). So here are three best practice boxes to tick to help ensure your digital banking system conversion doesn’t turn into a nightmare.

1. Pick Your Vendor and Negotiate the Support It Will Provide

When your credit union is choosing a vendor, don’t be coy. Drill into the ways the company will support the project.

There’s no room for grey areas when it comes to who does what and when. For example, if the vendor says it will offer “enhanced” call center support on go-live day, clarify what “enhanced” means. Eliminate fluff language like “you’ll have it” and clearly define in the contract what will happen and by when. Likewise, credit union leaders will want to understand what users can and can’t do on the new system. The goal is to offer better functionality and service, not worse.

Also, set a realistic timeline for a go-live date. At a minimum, your credit union will want to be working nine to 12 months to introduce a new digital platform, and that’s only if you are working with an out-of-the-box provider. Plan ahead 20 months if you’re using a robust software development kit that will require heavy customization.

The lead time will also help you train employees on the new layout and features, so they’ll be prepared to answer the inevitable user questions. (See No. 2.)

2. Communicate to Users. Then Communicate More

Spoiler: Nobody is reading your snail mail about your credit union’s upcoming changes.

The new system will be different—different log-ins, changed password requirements, special multi-factor authentication procedures, changes to browser settings, etc. When end-users are confused and frustrated—and they will be—it’s impossible to communicate too much to them about the changes.

So, tell them in advance of the impending upgrade and then remind them again—and detail if it will involve limiting certain kinds of transactions for a time. Inform them of the upcoming change across all your channels (website, mobile app, social media).

Also, plan to staff up your call center for at least a week after the digital implementation. Even if everything goes well, expect an incoming flood of phone calls and emails. If nothing else, users may see that something changed and inquire why. The person staffing the secure messaging channel may need to plan to spend all day answering queries too.

Your credit union will also need to monitor social media over the go-live period, day and night, to respond to people’s questions and concerns as well as to provide updates. Depositors fleeing SVB in response to tweets demonstrated just how quickly social media can lead to a disaster for a financial institution. Be proactive on social media so that negative commentary from disgruntled users won’t elude your credit union.

3. Test Across All Channels. Then, Test Again and Again and Again

Your members aren’t behind the institution’s firewall. So, it’s important to test the digital experience in the manner they would use it.

Test not just by device (mobile, desktop, tablet, etc.) but also by device type (Apple, Android, etc.). Watch out for features that break, like a wire transfer not sending. Trust us, it happens.

Also, don’t just test to be sure the system works … test to try to break it. Can you try to log in more than XX times and not get locked out? Can you initiate a transaction above a set threshold? Run these experiments.

Finally, verify whether your credit union’s core technology can handle the load of your users logging into their accounts. Here, consider whether you are moving from a legacy digital provider using a batch process where added login volume wouldn’t hinder core traffic to now using a real-time digital provider that calls every interaction then and there and may fail to, say, send a payment as a result.

Pro Tip: As part of testing, run a pilot. And running a pilot for one day or the same day as the go-live date doesn’t count (yes, we’ve seen this happen). Instead, try running a pilot with friends and family for a couple of months to discover real-life issues—i.e., missing accounts, improper account linking, or failing money transfers—to resolve ahead of your conversion.

You’ll find things. For instance, one client discovered its digital implementation required users to authenticate on their computers first. The problem? Many were trying to do so with the mobile banking app, and they kept trying, locking themselves out of their accounts. A bad decision led to a population of users who couldn’t even see their account balances. Make sure you have the right project governance in place to be able to pull the trigger and stop unexpected things from happening.

So What?

If your credit union’s strategic objective is to improve users’ digital banking experience but you don’t do a good job executing against it, you will be delivering a negative impact to your members. Along your journey down the digital transformation path, never lose sight of the value of your people. The caliber of resources involved in an implementation and the level of attention they devote to the project can truly make it a success.

So, whether you are pursuing a new digital platform to improve the member experience or to replace a sunsetting platform, make sure you use all your available resources to provide users something better than they had before.

Clio Silman is a managing director and implementation practice leader Chris Miller is a senior director in the delivery channels practice at CUESolutions provider Cornerstone Advisors.