When it comes to member service, time is money...and also satisfaction: Back-office and member-facing technology can provide valuable data to help shape the member's experience, keeping it long on service but short on time spent waiting.

As much as credit unions pride themselves on providing high-quality personal service, gaining a clear view of how members perceive their branch experience is a persistent challenge. How do members rate the expertise and professionalism of the employee serving them? Is the branch lobby easy to navigate? How long is too long to wait for service? And how can credit unions best act on member feedback?

Member surveys are an option, but they take time and response rates are often low. Secret shoppers provide another means of assessing frontline service, but savvy staff may be able to discern when their work is being evaluated and respond accordingly.

Just as technology is reshaping financial service delivery, it also offers new tools to evaluate the quality of branch service and to take steps to improve it.

Take, for example, the issue of wait time-the amount of time between members' arrival in a branch and the beginning of their interaction with a credit union employee. According to FMSI's 2016 Retail Branch Lobby Study, wait time increased, on average, from 4 minutes 46 seconds in 2011 to 7 minutes 6 seconds in 2015.

However, among the top 10 performing financial institutions in the study, wait time actually dropped from 3 minutes 10 seconds to 2 minutes 36 seconds. That improvement is attributed to proactive steps those credit unions and banks took to improve service delivery, including coaching and smarter staff scheduling.

MONITORING SERVICE DELIVERY

Managers at ELGA Credit Union's eight branches have a clear view...