News Release/For Immediate ReleaseJuly 12, 2004

Contact:	Rick Poulton, President
	(866) 444-8344

Better Lobby Product Enhances Credit Union Branch Experience

San Francisco - A credit union lobby has always been the place where members gather to conduct financial business, get the products and services they need, and bond with staff. Sometimes it can be as chaotic as a busy street - at other times, it can be as quiet as your local library. Always the hub of activity, a credit union's lobby is a reflection of the organization behind the queue lines, and its efficiency impacts the member's impression from the moment he or she walks through the front door.
       The challenge is to consistently make the member's experience a positive one, and to create an environment that balances service, friendliness, and efficiency. Managers frequently examine ways to make the credit union lobby experience simply...better.
      In an industry where sign-in clipboards and loud calls of “next” were once the standard, a new product has been created that automates lobby management while simultaneously streamlining, measuring, and reporting on non-teller lobby activity. Designed in partnership with a credit union to improve the lobby experience, Better Lobby was introduced as an inexpensive, easy to implement, affordable system that helps staff consistently deliver a positive member experience.
      Better Lobby manages the credit union lobby experience like no other lobby tool. It provides unsurpassed visibility of members who visit branches for non-teller services. Accessible to both branch and head office staff, Better Lobby records arrival, wait time, visit purpose and consultation time for every branch visitor to the service platform. Better Lobby has rich reporting functionality and encourages higher levels of staff accountability for service quality. It integrates with other applications to check identity and record the outcome of the member consultation. At any time and from any office in the credit union, Better Lobby allows staff and management to “view” lobby activity, wait time, and staff productivity in any or all branches. It provides current and past report-based insight into branch traffic, employee performance, purpose of visit, and staff utilization.
      In the summer of 2003, SAFE Credit Union in North Highlands, California teamed with the Poulton Consulting Group in San Francisco to conceptualize a system for perfecting the member's branch experience. Henry Wirz, President and CEO of SAFE, states "If credit unions are to prosper and grow, they must stop competing on price and improve customer service. For SAFE to accomplish that in a new account opening process meant re-thinking how we worked. That's why Better Lobby was created—a desire to improve customer service significantly, and to help community-sized financial institutions compete with the big banks."
      Rick Poulton, President of Better Branches–the owner of Better Lobby, worked closely with SAFE's branch and IT staff to engineer the Better Lobby process. Upon Better Lobby's implementation at SAFE in February 2004, management immediately witnessed a positive change in SAFE's branch environment. “Better Lobby takes the guesswork out of lobby management,” says Poulton, adding, “You can see branch activity hour by hour, and you know when branches are busy before they tell you. Better Lobby has been embraced not only by SAFE's management, but also by the staff who appreciate the mutual accountability. In just 24 months, Better Lobby has resulted in decreased waiting time along with an increased awareness of time efficiency. Because activity is measured and shared, staff trust the reporting to be accurate and fair.”
      With initial testing successfully completed, Better Lobby was offered to select credit unions for use on a trial basis. The product has been unanimously embraced by its users, and is now available for adoption by any credit union wishing to improve lobby service.
      “Better Lobby is easy to implement and very affordable,” says Rick Poulton. Because Better Lobby is browser-based and designed specifically for financial institutions, it can be up and running in as little as a day when the ASP-hosted service is used. Local installation is also available, and allows Better Lobby to be placed behind a credit union's firewall. Staff training typically takes about one hour and, once trained, staff can easily train each other to use Better Lobby without the assistance of a formal training program.
      Confident in the performance and effectiveness of the product, Better Lobby has been made available for trial use by credit unions for a two-month period at no cost or no further obligation. Once adopted for permanent usage, a credit union pays for a site license based on size. Among the institutions that have tested the program, none have turned back to their previous methods of lobby management.
      Better Lobby is a part of the Better Branches suite of products. Other product offerings will include solutions for verifying identification, measuring cross-selling success, and integration with an institution's CRM or data warehouse.

For more information about Better Lobby, contact Rick Poulton, President of Better Branches, at (866) 444-8344.

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