First Commonwealth Federal Credit Union is a consumer-friendly alternative to banking, cooperatively owned and customer driven. Their mission is to improve the financial lives of their neighbors and businesses through customer centricity, integrity, excellence, accountability and inclusion.

Today, First Commonwealth is the largest credit union in the Lehigh Valley with 11 financial centers serving more than 70,000 members and 1,300 employer groups.

First Commonwealth attributes their growth and success to their ability to deliver exceptional member experiences. They know that member experience is what brings customers through their doors and keeps them there.

Members who receive the full First Commonwealth experience not only become loyal members of the union, but also go on to refer to their friends, family and colleagues.

The tricky part? Ensuring all of their members received the best First Commonwealth experience, every time.

First Commonwealth always collected member feedback, but frontline members were often left in the dark, only receiving minimal data without any details or actionable steps to improve.

As a result, First Commonwealth struggled with two key challenges:

1. Inconsistent service delivery: Frontline teams didn’t have enough support, feedback, or coaching to deliver a consistent level of service to their members across various locations.
2. Member churn: Members who didn’t receive the level of service they were expecting were at risk of leaving.
   

Gathering feedback is just the tip of the iceberg. Distributing feedback successfully and making that feedback actionable is what was truly needed to make an impact. What First Commonwealth needed was useful data on what was driving their customer experience, easy ways to improve it, and most importantly, to turn things around for members who were at risk of churning.

Enter real-time feedback and coaching with AskNicely

By implementing AskNicely, First Commonwealth FCU started capturing more meaningful feedback from their members while automating a lot of low-impact work.

They then delivered that goldmine of information to the people who could make a real difference: their frontline teams. First Commonwealth was able to identify key gaps in the service experience and quickly implement new strategies across all levels of the business.

With AskNicely:

• Each financial center began scoring on member experience, so leadership can view trends by location or team.
  
• An incentive program was added for frontline staff based on their member scores.
• Member Experience Associates receive personalized praise and coaching straight to the app on their phone.
  

By using AskNicely’s automated survey tools and customer feedback platform, First Commonwealth was able to provide teams with the direct voice of the customer. This gave a deeper understanding of what their customers care about.

Exceptional member experience fueled by feedback

Over a five month period, First Commonwealth saw their NPS boost to more than 70 (an 11 point gain!)

They soon started to receive detailed testimonials from promoters who were so delighted they wanted to share their experience. These 'love letters' gave the credit union the blueprint for incredible member experience, which they now use to coach for continual improvements.

“AskNicely has helped us understand members' perspective of their experience. We can now coach and develop our teams to excel at service delivery, based on what actually matters to our members.” — Damaris Sirop, VP Director Member Experience.

First Commonwealth is now able to use their excellent member experience to differentiate themselves, and truly live their value of being customer centric and community driven. With AskNicely, they have confidence that their member experience associates live the service promise every day, in every location, in every interaction, and with every customer. Goodbye member churn, hello member loyalty, repeat business and referrals.