Credit unions are laser-focused on delivering exceptional member experiences, according to Joseph Thomas, former CIO of PenFed.
In a recent interview with HCLTech Trends and Insights at Dreamforce, Thomas said that the use of “Total Experience [strategies] is definitely something that's increasing. Credit unions will embrace it because it's all about the Member.”
Providing a seamless, omnichannel experience is crucial for credit unions to differentiate their offerings. “Members want to be served in the channel of their choice, and so credit unions need to be aware of all the interactions and all the experiences on every channel,” noted Thomas.
However, he also explained that the credit union member experience will not exceed the employee experience. “If you want to give first class, world class, member experience to the member, you must do the same thing for the employees serving those members” he said.
Looking ahead, Thomas believes credit unions will need to be more proactive and predictive in anticipating member needs. “Going forward, we must be more predictive of what the member wants, and so the experience is going to evolve. It's going to evolve from the member “pulling services” from us to us pushing great experiences to them as they need it.”
Emerging trends shaping the industry
Beyond Total Experience, Thomas highlighted several other key trends impacting credit unions, including the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud technologies.
“I think generative AI is a great buzzword right now [for credit unions], but when you look at the digital experiences and you combine that with the AI capabilities and the data that everybody has now about their members, those three things are going to now come together to be very powerful, to give predictive, hyper personalized services,” he explained.
The cloud also plays a critical role, enabling credit unions to leverage platform-as-a-service solutions. “It's really important to have a platform that covers the breadth of experiences, and the cloud is leading us to that,” said Thomas.
The value of transformation partners
Given the complexity of modernizing systems and delivering innovative member experiences, Thomas emphasized the importance of working with the right transformation partners, such as HCLTech, to achieve their PaaS, AI and Total Experience ambitions.
“Credit unions don't have a lot of money to spend, and their technology budgets are very constrained. They must be very judicious with every dollar they spend,” he said. “So having good technology partners, having good implementation partners that give value for money and that can help them manage the complexity of this journey ahead of us is extremely important.”
In his former role of CIO at PenFed, Thomas praised his long-standing partnerships with HCLTech, citing our “engineering excellence” and “flexibility and innovation to work with you on your problems” as key differentiators.
As credit unions navigate the path forward, delivering exceptional experiences for members will be paramount. By leveraging emerging technologies and collaborating with the right transformation partners like HCLTech, credit unions can stay ahead of the curve and continue fulfilling their mission of serving local communities.
“Building on that platform approach with platforms like Salesforce, where you can now bring in AI without having to have all the expense and knowledge to do it yourself, is really going to be a very important coming up in the next three to five years,” concluded Thomas.
