Planning an online banking upgrade? Don’t overlook your communication strategy. In this episode of the Hit Record Podcast, Meredith Olmstead and Nida Ajaz break down the internal and external communication tactics that make or break a successful online banking conversion. From prepping staff before launch to segmenting member messaging and creating clear timelines, this episode is packed with insights for credit unions and banks preparing for digital upgrades.
Key Takeaways:
Start with internal alignment. Before any public announcement, make sure your staff is trained, confident, and equipped with FAQs, escalation forms, and clear timelines, preferably all housed on a centralized internal hub.
Segment your external outreach. Focus first on your existing online banking users with frequent, multi-channel updates. Save the broader promotional push for post-launch when the platform is stable.
Create a thoughtful member experience. Incorporate surprise-and-delight elements, like contests or giveaways, and make information easy to find through a clean, updated landing page to minimize call center volume.
Transcription:
Meredith Olmstead:
Hi there. I'm Meredith Olmstead, CEO and founder of FI GROW Solutions. We're a digital marketing and sales consulting agency. We work exclusively with credit unions and community banks. And I am here with Nida Ajaz, our senior VP of marketing. Say, "Hi," Nida.
Nida Ajaz:
Hi, everyone.
Meredith Olmstead:
Nida and I were just talking about a couple of projects that we've been doing last year and then going into this year for several clients around communication plans for online banking conversions. And Nida, she was telling me about some of the work that we've been done. She and a couple of our other internal team members have been working on. And I was like, "Why don't we just hit record on this, Nida? It seems like this is becoming a regular thing for our clients." And she's like, "Yeah, it makes sense. Let's do a little podcast on this and talk about, what are some of the regular tips and tricks that we're seeing that we're replicating for clients around how to run online banking conversion communication plans, both internally, which a lot of people don't even realize they need an internal communication plan for their online banking conversions and externally to your members or your customers so that you don't have a lot of really upset customers and members?"
Nida, let's talk about this. First of all, I guess we should maybe talk about internal because I would assume if you're communicating with staff, that probably happens first when you're converting your online banking, and this is a big conversion because this is how people get to their money basically. You're going to just have to start talking with your staff first, right?
Nida Ajaz:
Actually, this is something we've noticed in the past is that a lot of times organizations don't even realize they actually put a proper plan with a timeline internally in place. A lot of times we have to come in and remind them, "Hey, these are some things that you need in place." Because internally, sometimes it's ignored a little bit or they say, "Let's play it as we go." But there are a few points that I want to make that we've seen across the board that projects have improved just by setting a very strong internal communication plan. And one of the first things we do when we come in is create an internal, a landing page that's internally accessible. Apart from getting your team tested and understanding the new online banking tool and platform, it's very important to give them information at their fingertips so they don't feel lost.
And putting as much of that information on a easy place, like you might have an intranet, it doesn't have to be a landing page per se, but somewhere where they know where they can go and get all the FAQs if they need, a cheat sheet and important dates, so they don't feel lost, first of all.
Meredith Olmstead:
And everybody has it because it's easy to think, "We all have..." If the people who are managing that conversion feel like, "I know where all the answers are. I've been testing it. I have all these answers." But then you have to remember that you never know who all of these different frontline staff are going to be asked these questions a hundred times over as they're coming in contact with your customers and your members. And if they can have those, that really easy, "Here, I can bookmark this page and I can constantly go back to the same spot and find these answers quickly, quickly, quickly, it makes life a lot easier." For sure.
Nida Ajaz:
And it makes them more confident when they're answering or interacting with your customers or members.
The other thing we built in is an escalation form. Not all the answers are going to be available for all your team members, but giving them a process of, let's say you can answer something, what are the next steps that you can quickly take so someone can get to them to get those questions answered? We always incorporate some sort of escalation form and know on the backend who's going to be receiving those, who's going to be following up with those. It's very important to put that in the plan. And the third most important thing is actually PTO blackouts and schedules. A lot of times we've seen that you might have major key team members when the launch is happening and they have something planned. It's very important to put those in place.
Meredith Olmstead:
And then reward people for following them, providing meals, providing incentives. Sometimes I actually have seen some clients where they might have a blackout, but then they'll reward everybody with an additional extra PTO day added in for the year for everyone because they had a week or two where they weren't allowed to take any extra time off or for some extended period of time. You can have a lot of different approaches to it just to keep morale high and keep people from getting upset. Because if your staff isn't mad about something, that translates to a bad attitude about a conversion with members and with customers. And then, "This stinks," translates to, "Yeah, this conversion stinks," with your customers. And you don't want that energy to translate to conversations even between the lines when they're talking with your customers.
Nida Ajaz:
That's why the first step in an external communication plan is an internal communication plan because that is what's going to make your external communication plan so smooth.
Meredith Olmstead:
After you've done all that with your staff, how do we typically approach communicating public-facing communications when you're doing an online banking conversion?
Nida Ajaz:
We think of it as in two phases. And really the communication needs to happen for current online banking users who are really going to be impacted whether it's bill pay that needs to be reactivated, if it's downtime of online banking, there's so much strong communication that needs to happen over and over for that segment that we'd like to first phase just launch and communication plan for them. The secondary part of it is launching a communication plan for all customers and members who might not be online banking users, but we can use this new upgrade to trigger them or to get them signed up. That would be a secondary phase.
Meredith Olmstead:
Basically you segment your list and you're basically going full speed ahead, often over communicating with the people who you know are active on the platform. And you're bombarding the people who are using your online banking two and three times a week with all this messaging and also probably messaging them in the online banking message platform itself with all of these dates coming up. "Look, this is what's going to happen. These are the dates where it's going to be limited. This is what will be available. This is what won't be available. This is what you have to expect. These are the benefits that you're going to have." All those kind of things. But you don't have to do that with everyone necessarily. The people who aren't on online banking, you can take a little bit of a slower play with them around it.
Nida Ajaz:
Up until launch, we don't even talk to them unless they see something on social media or on the homepage banner, about the online upgrade, they might probably not even notice because we want to make sure that the new online banking is launched and then tested and all the users of current, the users are settled for us to then go out and recruit more people on the users. But within the online banking users only communication, we like to have a little bit fun. We like to tie in a tagline and really create a custom campaign around the communication, like a tagline that builds excitement even for the users. And then we have a very custom look and feel for that whole thing. Because as you know with any other marketing, you have to show that same message in a memorable manner for people to really understand what's going on.
They might miss it if you just show it in one unique way. Every single channel looks different. What we do first is we make a list of all the channels, marketing channels we want to use, whether it's a landing page, homepage banner, all the online... Of course, you mentioned the current online banking platform is a huge one because then you can put notifications there. A lot of people miss out on just using your current online banking as a marketing tool to put notifications on there. But then SMS, because these are notifications for actual users, it's a great way to say, "Your online banking is going to be down." SMS is a great tool for some communication like that." And then you can incorporate other things too, depending on your budget, whether it's a direct mail postcard to the online banking users or displaying in branch display.
There's first making a list of what all you want to use as a channel is important, and then creating that messaging and then using it across those channels. And we always like to have a landing page to house all the information on the external side too, just so the member or customer feels empowered that if they need more information, they can always click away into experiencing that.
Meredith Olmstead:
To a frequently asked questions page, it has a clear dates timeline of important dates when things are going to be happening, what's going to be up, what's going to be down. It's really important to do that too, and you have all those dates really clear so that they don't feel like they have to inundate your call center or your branches with lots of phone calls. You're going to get some anyway, but the more you can put out there, the more information you can make clear and put on your digital channels, the less phone calls you're going to get. You can put those dates as many places as you can. We like to put those dates very clearly on social media over and over again, especially the closer you get and those kinds of things. And then having that landing page that's very clear and updated.
Nida Ajaz:
And the last thing I would mention is incorporating surprise and delight elements to make the process more pleasant for your members and customers just like you are to build morale internally. It is a little bit of a problem when you have to reset your online bill pay and things like that. Incorporating some sort of surprise and delight for the customers goes a long way, for sure.
Meredith Olmstead:
You can even run a fun contest after it goes live, some kind of Easter egg type of contest through the new platform and do giveaways or those kind of things.
Nida Ajaz:
I love those.
Meredith Olmstead:
We've seen some fun results with those. Awesome. Thank you so much, Nida, for the tips. We love seeing these upgrades and also just focusing on the real positive sides of these upgrades because obviously there's a reason why you're doing these online banking upgrades and most of the time people are very happy with the new functionality. Obviously it's an adjustment, but once they get used to it, change can be hard, but once you get used to it's usually a much better user experience. Awesome. I hope that everybody enjoyed these tips. If you'd like to learn more about FI GROW or digital marketing for your bank or credit union, please visit us at figrow.com. And otherwise, let's just all get out there and make it happen.