Optimize Member Experience and Operations with Unified Data and Reporting 

Persistent inflation and climbing interest rates are changing consumer deposit needs, as well as loan and mortgage demand. But change brings new opportunities, too. Credit unions now find themselves with new deposits and loans attracted by more favorable rates.

However, while economic conditions may favor credit unions in the short term, the shift to digital-friendly member transactions and interactions continues. Thus, in the longer run, credit unions must work to optimize member experience—and omnichannel services with unified data and reporting are the keystone.

Omnichannel Member Experience Defined 

Omnichannel member experience includes all aspects of a credit union member’s relationship with your credit union, from the moment a new member onboards to all interactions across all the communications channels members use. 

Naturally, this includes in-person services. But omnichannel also encompasses modern digital communications methods that members across the generations use today. These are the interactions via the phone, texting, email, webchats and social media. 

Current State of Member Experience Technology: Too Many Apps

Right now, your member experience technology is a fragmented ecosystem of apps that evolved over time. You likely have one tool for determining customer journeys, another for handling voice interactions, a separate tool for social media interactions and yet another for webchat. 

These individual apps come with their own integrations, customer experience processes, IT management and agents or employees who use them. 

Data and Reporting Limitations Impair Member Experience

Worse yet, each app then produces its own data silo that blocks cohesive reporting.

Without unified data, it is impossible to instantly spot demand spikes in order to adequately manage operations. Additionally, there is no visibility to report cross-channel experiences, let alone measure or improve them. 

The outcome is continuous friction for agents and a disorganized member experience. 

Optimize Member Experience with Unified Data and Reporting

To improve it, credit unions can use an omnichannel, all-in-one cloud contact center. This contact center solution contains most of the features, functions, and capabilities you need in a single, easy-to-manage platform—with the ability to easily customize to accommodate legacy systems, databases, applications, and unique needs. 

Since this type of contact center serves all communications channels—including Facebook, Twitter, Trustpilot, Instagram, WhatsApp, email, webchat, text and voice—the ensuing interactions data is all together in one place. You get true unified data for powerful reporting.

No More Data Silos

Among other advantages, this has two important implications for both current operations and future customer journey decisions: 

1. Dashboards that report current metrics—like service levels, agent performance, and status—are always up-to-date and accurate up to the second. 

With an omnichannel contact center, you can keep an elevated level of service regardless of volume. Simply because you have visibility, supervisors can make workflow changes on the fly.

2. Reporting to understand longer-term service trends and customer issues over any defined interval using historical reporting dashboards, even up to 12 or 13 months enable your credit union to analyze and make customer journey improvements leading to happier members and greater efficiency. 

For example, after learning which inquiries are simple and high volume, credit unions can offer self-service options. These can be deployed through voice, texts or chatbots, directing a member to a given website section containing the needed information.

Unified Data and Reporting Features Every Contact Center Should Have

When it comes to unifying data for robust reporting, your cloud contact center should have some key features and functions. Here are some you should have in your solution:

• A customer data platform that stores and accesses all customer and communications channel data,
• An intuitive and flexible graphical report-builder interface, 
• Permissions that restrict report-building to a select group of users,
• Real-time reporting to monitor agents and manage outbound campaigns,
• Complete flexibility in dashboard creation, such as showing stats by agent or group, changing colors, using various graphics, and making custom metric calculations, 
• Standard, out-of-the box historical reports and templates to get your customer experience team off and running,
• Ability to easily customize historical reports from standard reports, metrics, and filters -- to meet your organization’s unique needs,
• An enormous range of standard metrics like service levels, failed calls, answered calls, dial calls, failed dial calls, total incoming, total outgoing, logged on, chat setup/chat, Twitter Setup/Twitter, email setup/email, etc.—by agent and by group, 
• Flexibility to work with any existing legacy asset, including network infrastructure, database, or customer relationship management system that your credit union uses to operate its member or customer experience,
• Ability to pull in data from any source,
• Alerting via any channel—including Facebook and Twitter—to show status like agent availability and queue wait times or sizes,
• Report-sharing across your organization or with specific users with customizable access permissions and editable templates,
• Separate metric calculations for live (voice and webchat) communications channels versus non-live ones (text, email and social media),
• Automatic report distribution via email or secure file transfer protocol, and
• Easy data exports and downloads in spreadsheets or graphics.

So, unified data and reporting is a main reason so many financial services companies adopt a customizable, all-in-one cloud contact center. Because it easily integrates with any fintech apps and platforms you use, your credit union can cost-effectively offer truly modern, differentiated member services to all types of consumers.

Andrew Casson is a longtime network engineer and telecommunications and contact center architect. He is currently a VP for CUESolutions provider Content Guru, Campbell, California, maker of the highly acclaimed storm®, an all-in-one contact center-as-a-service solution with industry-leading functionality, performance, reliability, and flexibility. Learn more from the world’s leading cloud contact center.