As the digital revolution continues to change how we interact with members, your credit union must consider its digital IQ. A digital IQ is how much technology your credit uses and how well it uses it; a credit union that uses only a little technology, but uses it effectively, might have a higher digital IQ than a credit union who has a lot of technology but doesn’t use it to its full potential. Understanding your credit union’s digital IQ is the first step to increasing it and creating a better experience for your members.
Evaluating Your Credit Union’s Digital IQ
The first step in understanding your credit union’s digital IQ is by taking a thorough look at the technologies your credit union has invested in; this includes everything from your Microsoft suite to your core to your vendor technologies. Next, assess what your credit union uses these technologies for versus what they’re capable of. Consider the following while making your audit:
- Is your credit union underutilizing a technology?
- Is it capable of making predictions and tracking data points, but is currently being used to produce a single report?
- Does it have other capabilities that haven’t been explored?
- Is your team fully trained on all features?
- Is your credit union investing in multiple technologies with overlapping uses?
- Are the secondary features in any of your subscriptions able to cover the primary features in another?
- Are any of your subscriptions redundant?
- How user friendly are the technologies your credit union has invested in?
- Are any of the programs your credit union relies on too complicated to make full use of?
- Does the amount of training required lead to underuse?
- Are there updated versions of your subscriptions available?
- Are you using the most recent version of your technology subscriptions?
- Are there additional features or other benefits in the updated versions?
Increasing Your Credit Union’s Digital IQ
Increasing your credit union’s digital IQ doesn’t have to mean expensive new subscriptions. Depending on your credit union’s needs and current capabilities, you may only need to invest in increased training on current programs, as you may be neglecting useful features. Or you may just need to invest in updated version of existing technologies – it can be tempting to stick with the version you know, but updated versions often have better user interfaces, increased capabilities and/or bug fixes to address issues with previous versions.
Depending on your credit union’s needs, however, it may be necessary to invest in new technologies. Replacing faulty or obsolete technologies can have increased upfront costs, but in the long term will allow your credit union to operate more efficiently and provide a better member experience.
Counterintuitively, increasing your credit union’s digital IQ may be as simple as eliminating certain technologies. Subscriptions that are redundant or rarely used are a drain on your credit union’s resources and lower your overall digital IQ. Eliminating these technologies will free up resources to focus on more valuable resources and upgrades.
Evaluating and investing in your credit union’s digital IQ will not just increase your overall tech capabilities, but it can also lead to cost savings and increased member satisfaction. Your credit union’s digital IQ is always evolving and should be measured at regular intervals to ensure you’re staying up to date on the tech that is most beneficial to your credit union, as well as eliminating those that are no longer relevant.
This article was written by Bill Lehman, Chief Marketing Officer at Trellance.
