How much money DO I have to have on deposit?

A neighbor of ours just lost her husband of 45 years to cancer. She doesn't drive. She wants to sell his Buick.

She called her credit union last week to get the book value of the car. She was told that it took too long to do that and since she wanted it for personal reasons, they couldn't do it for her. If she had wanted the value because she was going to get a new car and a loan, no problem.

She has over $10,000.00 on deposit with this credit union. My question is - "How much money DO I have to have on deposit to get good service?'

Have we become so bottom-line oriented that we don't help members any more? These stories are becoming more and more common among financial institutions. It just scares me.

From a loyalty economics perspective, we are making some bad decisions with our policies. This story has made the rounds in our neighborhood. Word of mouth WAS and IS the best marketing. If you're not measuring that, you don't get it.

The best way to measure it is with the Net Promoter Score. I attended a conference in New York City earlier this year and wrote about the NPS in CUES.

If you think that service is your differentiator, you need to start measuring it and managing it and giving out book values for cars for your members who have been loyal. That's just my opinion.....