CU’s Pop-Up Survey Increases Debit Card Use

CUNA's Escan
January 25, 2012 | COMMENTS

1st Advantage Federal Credit Union, Yorktown, Va., had a problem: Almost no one was clicking on the banner ads it displayed in online banking sessions to cross-sell products.

So, the credit union tried a different approach. It began presenting targeted questionnaires to members as they finished their online banking sessions. This tactic boosted conversion rates for one of its products to nearly 10% in a test.

“We saw a significant increase in conversion once we made the application a pop-up option when the member logged out,” Jim Craig, vice president of marketing for 1st Advantage, tells American Banker.

The product it tested, called KulaX, was developed by Micronotes of Cambridge, Mass. KulaX presents three questions, targeted to a specific user and designed around a particular product. The questions are presented only when the member logs out.

The KulaX technology can use either transaction data gathered by the institution or its own analysis engine to target questions. It tracks responses and the actual use of the offers it presents.

1st Advantage uses an online banking product from Fiserv, and it has its own back-end system to examine member transaction data.

In spring of 2011, 1st Advantage tested KulaX for a variety of products, including debit cards, mortgages, and auto loans. The most dramatic improvement was for the credit union’s debit card.

During the test period, 22,000 of the credit union’s 57,000 members visited its online banking site. The credit union identified 275 who had the card but were not using it.

Using KulaX, the credit union created an online form with three questions and paired it with a $10 cash incentive if the member agreed to use the card for 10 transactions. Of the members who were presented with the offer, 154 viewed the survey and 25 actually completed it. Fourteen agreed to take the offer.

“From a marketer’s perspective, it was nice to know who accepted an offer and who didn’t so we could retarget it,” Craig says. This way, the credit union can avoid bombarding users with offers they repeatedly turn down.

The credit union also plans to give its member service representatives access to data from KulaX so they can use its records to follow warm leads.

Placing the member surveys at the end of the online banking session was a smart choice, according to Ron Shevlin, senior analyst at Aite Group. “Transactional marketing is always striving for two things: Customer relevancy and timeliness,” he says.

And members are more willing to hear from their financial institutions about products online than they are about a merchant’s products, according to a Fiserv survey of more than 1,000 consumers.

More than half the respondents said they’d consider receiving recommendations online for financial products if they were tailored specifically to them. Only 14% said they’d be open to hearing about targeted third-party recommendations, and nearly 25% said they’d be open to both.