A new area to watch is the use of Branch Appointments. In many ways, this is currently the missing piece of the “member visit puzzle. Big players are already onboard with this progressive concept. Case in point: Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Regions Bank, and BMO Harris are all offering scheduling tools on their websites.
Some interesting discoveries were made as we worked with clients to better understand their appointment handling needs:
- Appointment handling is often not well organized in most CUs. Some use spreadsheets or share Outlook calendars in a way that is cumbersome and not visible to other employees.
- Appointments can be used to reduce cost and improve service. In client discussions it became clear that encouraging appointments in off-peak times (i.e., 2- 4 pm) and NOT making appointments during peak times (i.e., 11 am to 1:30 pm) was considered a good way to move peak traffic into slow periods.
- Current branch appointment handling methods provide few workforce metrics to assist management in evolving the branch, e.g., they cannot provide metrics such as: “appointments/day/employee” “{91edff4ab0179c213d4d62ccb73735ad51d636906a6f58336791bd911b76df7b} of no-show appointments” and “appointments vs. walk-ins ratio”.
- Mobile/web member-initiated appointments are coming – few CUs have the technical or operational infrastructure needed to meet this member expectation.
Key Takeaway: the ability to set Branch Appointments is an effective way for credit unions to bridge their online and offline channels and while starting the processes of transforming their branches into sales and service hubs.
