Credit Union Times covers New MeridianLink SMS announcement
Technology, especially Fintech, is designed to make life easier for both companies and the people they serve.
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Banks and Credit Unions Are Losing to Fintech
Both banks and credit unions continue to lose market share to digital lending platforms that offer better user experience and more personalization. Fintech startups issued 38% of all US personal loans in 2018, while banks provided 28% and credit unions accounted for 21%, according to TransUnion. This is a significant change from
Shastic Partners with MeridianLink to Leverage SMS in the Application
MeridianLink is the largest loan origination system in the United States, providing the nation’s first multi-channel loan organization platform
Recently, MeridianLink announced a partnership with Shastic to deliver an innovative SMS and real-time tracking integration inside all of their applications. Before this, financial institutions did not have a way to communicate with their customers as they moved through the application process.
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The Problems With Shortcode
There is a good chance you have used a shortcode at some point when communicated by SMS with a business organization, whether it be in the financial services, retail, travel, or transportation industry.
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How Messaging Has Transformed Customer Service
There’s no denying that technology has changed the way that people communicate, for better or worse.
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Fintech Provides Customers with Meaningful Experiences
Everyone has experienced at least one instance in which they’ve had a lackluster customer service experience. The best that companies can hope for with those is that they fall to the wayside, but they can quickly become the bane of a company’s existence
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How Credit Unions Verify Each Member’s Identification Digitally
Most credit unions currently have a process in place to verify each member through the call center. The verification of the member’s identity allows the credit union to perform specific tasks over the phone, such as balance inquiries, transferring funds and making loan payments.
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To Be a Leader in the Industry Mobile Banking is the Key
Mobile banking is one of the top three most-used apps on consumer smartphones.
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Mobile Banking: Exploring Trends For Market Leadership
In the past, people had the time to visit a bank. But all companies must re-evaluate their customer service routines, and market leadership today means exploring how technology can help customers at financial institutions.
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Studies Show Mobile Banking Apps are Among the Most Popular
Most people who have a smartphone utilize it for more than just phone calls.
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Driving Credit Union Messaging: What Works?
Not all credit union customer service strategies are created equal. Customer service solutions that incorporate some form of nonverbal messaging are better-off than those without.
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Two-Way Text Messaging for Credit Union Communication
One challenge that credit unions face today is the need to keep themselves relevant. Usually, this involves making a face for themselves on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, but this alone is not key to keeping technologically viable. The key, it seems, is adopting a technological advancement that has been around for decades and yet has been primarily underutilized by companies. The technology? Two-way text messaging.
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Best Practices to Drive Messaging at Your Credit Union
Text messaging is now a commonplace practice among most people, and more and more financial institutions are adapting text messaging solutions out of convenience.
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Credit Union Digital Strategies Aren’t “Set and Forget”
Anyone involved in a technology field can tell you business technology is growing rapidly. What this means for companies is that they must update their technology in order to remain viable in their field of competition. “Set and forget” technologies, or technologies that are not designed to meet the constantly shifting expectations of modern technology, pose problems to potential company growth. In many cases, set and forget technologies can put companies years behind and create cost burdens to businesses.
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Why Your Credit Union Needs a Defined Data Strategy
If your company is a fledgling in the world of technology, don’t worry. The term defined data strategy is nowhere near as challenging or technologically advanced as it sounds.
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How to Build Community With Text Messaging
There are reasons why banks and other financial institutions are adopting mobile-based platforms for their customers: It fosters a sense of closeness that has been lost in the business of the modern world.
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CUTimes story: Why Credit union members love text message interactions
Last week, the CreditUnionTimes featured a story about why three of Shastic’s credit union partners are integrating text messaging into their operations strategy.
This CUTimes article dives into how credit unions are using SMS text to connect to the systems they already use, including account opening, loan origination, and customer relationship management systems.
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Why it’s Now Time to Adopt an Omni-Channel Digital Strategy
The financial industry is seeing an emergence of digital technology, delivering enhanced experiences to customers who demand convenience, accessibility and easy-to-use platforms.
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Park Community on pace for 2044% ROI from loan growth
Credit union uses text messaging platform to give members actionable loan app information.
In 2018, Park Community was evaluating messaging communication services to create a better experience for their members. The credit union needed a text messaging platform that could accurately capture loan prospects in real-time and help guide them through the digital application journey when applicants entered Park’s online loan applications.
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Millennial Text Messaging Statistics
Think that adults age 40 and over are your biggest worry? Think again. When it comes to servicing the largest group of potential customers, this role goes to the Millennial population and is closely followed by Generation Z. For this specific audience, the digital user experience takes a much higher priority.
While in-person or over-the-phone interactions may have been the preferred method in the past, the next generation of banking customers are challenging this idea, and backing it up with surprising statistics.
Reducing Friction in Account Opening
Is your financial institution experiencing a lower-than-average rate of new customers? How about those online applications — are they being consistently abandoned by new customers? If so, you’re not alone. Studies have shown that recent abandon rates for online banking applications have averaged out to about 97% among financial institutions.
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The Dos and Don’ts of Text Messaging
Credit Unions are up against tough competition when it comes to providing digital services to a young, growing population. This is particularly true when you consider how just one bad user experience can turn away a potential long-term Millennial customer permanently.
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Benefits of Workflow Automation
With many people concerned about the prospect of “robots” taking their jobs, the idea of an automated workplace just might seem like one step closer to a dystopian reality. But for those in workforces where the majority of the work can be completed on an employee’s own time and without direct supervision from a manager, workflow automation can be a blessing. Not only does it place more trust in your employees and cause them to focus efforts on more meaningful tasks, but it can also increase the level of satisfaction held by your customers.
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Best Practice for Complying with SMS Regulation
Just a few years ago, the FCC determined text messaging does indeed fall under the TCPA umbrella. For some companies, this may have come as a surprise — particularly for Jiffy Lube with their now-famous SMS mishap.
But no need to get discouraged or abandon the idea of text messaging for your financial organization altogether. There are a few easy ways to make sure your company complies with the TCPA and never misses a beat.
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B2C Text Messaging: Knowing the Rules for Digital Banking
The mass adoption of B2C text messaging is not by accident. Companies, both large and small, now understand just how powerful text messaging tools can be for their business. This is particularly true for the new digital age of banking.
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Receiving Banking Documents Just Got Easy
Over the last year, the Elle text messaging platform continues to advance with new benefits and features the banking industry. Today, we are highlighting on such addition that our banking partners have been taking advantage of recently – collecting loan and new account documentation by text messaging.
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Text Marketing Vs. Email Marketing: Infographic
The importance of texting as both a social and marketing tool is now more important than ever for businesses.
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Key Reasons SMS Marketing is Essential
Even before the dawn of text-based everything, David Wachs and other marketers knew that SMS-based marketing was the future of marketing. The evidence for SMS-based marketing was what prompted Wachs to write this article, which details the five most important things, in his opinion, to utilizing this underrated marketing option.
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Four Reasons Why SMS is More Effective than Email Marketing
Email is attached to everything today in your career and your personal life. With this widespread exposure, it is understandable why so businesses flock to the simple email as a means of marketing. But emailing might not be the best way to reach your audience.
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Eight SMS Opt-in Approaches to Consider
An article covered in Entrepreneur points out a few things that really do not change much over time — customers, regardless of demographics, always want the same basic things. Author, Derek Gehl breaks down a few approaches to with getting these customers to opt-in to offers that speak to this mindset.
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Mobile SMS Secrets: Strategies for Success
If you have a mobile device, chances are you’ve probably gotten an unwanted text or SMS before. They are unavoidable, ranging from unsolicited advertising to ‘special’ marketing promotions. In the end, it makes you ask how your number was made available to this person. Even worse, when customers find out a company they are affiliated with is doing this, a common knee-jerk reaction is to stop being a customer altogether.
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How to Design a Millennial Bank
In a recent article by The Financial Brand, Alex Kreger describes the complexities of banking for a Millennial customer. It is important to consider this age group, argues Kreger, as it is estimated that before 2025 Millennials will control $7 trillion in global assets.
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Text Messaging Metrics You Can’t Ignore
It has taken less than ten years for text messaging and mobile-based communication to become the preferred method of communication across the globe. This simple fact based on recent studies, emphasizes why marketers and financial institutions, in particular, should build a strategy for text messaging.
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Make Mobile Messaging Part of Your Communications Plan
In an article by Tim Fujita-Yuhas of The Financial Brand, the author highlights some staggering statistics concerning text message usage by mobile banking customers. For example, “64% of millennials prefer text messages to voice for customer service.” The Financial Brand also notes how “77% of millennials look favorably on companies that offer text messaging communications.”
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Know the Text Messaging Guidelines
Since the 2015 FCC ruling, all companies that engage in text messaging are required to comply with TCPA regulations in reference to their text messaging services. Under the ruling, it requires banks and credit unions to follow certain stipulations when it comes to sending our SMS or MMS messages.
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How SMS Increases Convenience for Banking Customers
OpenMarket did a great job of explaining the simplicity of bank text messaging. Beginning first with a brief overview of what different text banking messages look like and explaining the different functionality available to these financial organizations.
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SMS Marketing Case Study: Avoid Jiffy Lube’s Costly Mistake
In 2012, cell-phone usage was beginning to peak and was quickly becoming one of the most important tools for marketing. Text messaging, especially, was showcasing its versatility and abundance. Unfortunately for some companies, such as Jiffy Lube, little research was done into opt-in text messaging solutions before deploying to their customer base. This article highlights exactly what can happen if precautions are not taken to respect customer wishes regarding opt-in texting.
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Text Messaging Vendor Checklist: Four Questions to Ask
In the fast-moving world of financial technology, better known as
SMS Opt-in for Banking: How to Opt-in Users for Text Messaging?
The benefits of having text message services for banking are real. Not only does it provide a direct channel of communication “à la” SMS but it can also connect more people to your organization’s brand, fostering a deeper sense of customer loyalty.
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FCC Rules & Regulations on Text Messaging: Understanding TCPA
Text messaging functionality is quickly being adopted by financial institutions seeking to better serve their customers. Once deployed, these leading businesses see it as an invaluable communication tool. However, it is important to understand the do’s and don’t when it comes to text messaging regulation.
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How to Improve Customer Experience with SMS Banking
In a recent article, Nichole Wong delves into the expanding world of text messaging for banking. Wong also points out some surprising differences between email and text marketing.
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Why Poor Customer Service Costs Billions and How to Fix it
Shep Hyken of Forbes points out several ‘frightening statistics’ in the world of customer service — something that all leading businesses must master at one point or another. In his piece, Hyken’s focuses less on the impact of customer retention and more on the monetary impact of poor customer service.
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How Banks & Credit Unions are Using Text Messaging
When it comes to mediums or channels of communication, text messaging is the most underutilized ways of gathering account information from customers, selling them on new products, and ultimately catering to their needs. In recent studies, it is shown that within the first 3 minutes of receiving a text message, 98% of all text messages are read. This statistic alone uncovers
Push Vs. Pull : Which Text Messaging Service Benefits Banking Customers Most?
You get a text and you don’t really think about the processes it takes to get that message from sender to receiver.
However, financial institutions must think about this when implementing their own text banking options. Here’s a look into the various text messaging offerings for financial institutions and how each motivates different type of customers.
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Five Benefits When Adding Messaging to Your Banking Strategy
Digital transformation is a hot topic for leading financial institutions today. Luckily, most banks and credit unions are overcoming the pressure to adapt or become extinct. Rather, these banking institutions are steadily transforming into a digital era, with many now adding messaging to their omnichannel communication strategies.
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Why Financial Institutions Must Expand Omnichannel Services
Over the last decade, banking technology has expanded rapidly with the growth of several new communication channels to improve the user experience. And the expansion of these new digital cross-channels can be attributed to a single group — Millennials.
As Communication Changes, Banking Call Centers Turn to Text
Text messaging is no longer considered a complicated, high-tech decision for banks and credit unions. Statistics show that text message for banking is critical to efficiently service customers in today’s world. Furthermore, a majority of financial institutions see text message as a gateway to provide consumers with a better digital experience.
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How Educators Credit Union Achieved a 68% Completion rate from Loan Applicants
A loan applicant prospect starts to fill out a loan application online. This applicant comes to a section that confuses them and stops completing the application. They decide to come back to the loan application tomorrow when they can get help. However, the applicant forgets about it and the financial institution never follows up with this prospect. Does this sound familiar?
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How the World is Communicating and Why Banks and Credit Unions Should Pay Attention
Susan is a CMO at a Washington-based financial institution. She loves her team’s outreach strategy, but deep down she knew something wasn’t right. Her promotional emails were ignored, outbound calls went unanswered, and overall engagement was low. She didn’t know why this was happening, but knew that she had to make a change.
If you work at a bank or credit union, you may have noticed there’s a fundamental shift in how communication is delivered and received, and this change is happening at unprecedented speeds.
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Why Email and Social Media Campaigns Fall Short
A common goal for marketing professionals at credit unions is getting the right content to the right audience at the right time. So, you put extra effort into your strategy. You categorize and target your member audience to specific financial products or promotions. You make your email and social media posts engaging. You offer fun and interactive sweepstakes.
However, despite this effort, you notice your members are not responding at the same rate as they have in the past.
Why You Must Start Designing Your Conversational Banking Strategy Now
Digital transformation tears through the financial services industry like a whirlwind. It is often so dizzying that it can seem like the progress of technology has a mind of its own. It can be forgotten that all of the disruption and change exists for one reason — to better
Why Conversational Messaging is a No-Brainer
Financial institutions are experiencing an evolution in terms of how they reach consumers across new mediums of communication. Many have followed the example of
The building out of these products demonstrates an growing demand for conversational messaging functionality. Here are a few key attributes driving this progress:
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Why Members Don’t Answer Your Calls
Despite the proven wins for financial institutions, not all credit unions are quick to adopt more efficient communication technology. Credit unions are often slower to offer their members 1-on-1 text messaging services or push SMS messaging even though it is the way members want to communicate.
Here are a few reason why credit unions should step it up when it comes to diversifying their digital conversational channels:
7 Strategies for Credit Unions to Grow Text Message Opt-in Consent
The biggest concern credit unions have with text messaging is opt-in consent. All credit unions must obtain “prior written consent” from members before sending text message communication to meet FCC/TCPA compliance. So how can you automatically convert new applicants into lifelong text message recipients?
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Five Credit Unions Sign with Shastic’s Text Messaging Platform in January to Enhance Lending and Operations
Shastic has signed on five new customers in the first month of 2018. The recent growth follows the company’s early launch of Elle, a conversational text messaging platform built for credit unions. Elle is an expansion of their automation services to deliver efficient, real-time message communication between credit unions and their members.
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Is Email Dead?
Arguably the most prefered way to communicate digitally in the early 2000’s, email has begun to fade from popularity as more efficient methods are emerging. The rise of email-based spam or unsolicited commercial emails could be a major factor. Kaspersky Labs report states email makes up 70% of all emails sent, while a 2014 email metric report found the portion of spam email was around 90% of emails sent. Or, perhaps it is due to the growing number of message-based applications available offering a real-time conversational platform to connect organizations with consumers.
Here are some key reasons why email is being replaced by a new wave of business tools:
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