What does your member onboarding process look like? How do you track member satisfaction through that experience? One of our clients recently approached us because this didn’t exist for their organization. The credit union had no idea what or when the touchpoints were or if the experience was positive for new members. This blog will explain how we implemented a member onboarding process by unlocking member data from the credit union’s Symitar banking core and leveraging Salesforce as the primary tool to track the member experience.
It all started with lousy middleware
Several years prior, the credit union had made a significant investment by implementing Salesforce as a tool to serve members through many of its credit union processes. However, a poor Informatica installation had broken the connection to the credit union’s banking core, Symitar. In the data that eventually made it to Salesforce, fields were mismatched, calculations were wrong, and several other vital issues. As a result, the team lost all confidence in the tool, and internal usage of Salesforce was very low.
Enabling the 2-2-2 member engagement model
The credit union initially engaged with our team to repair the connection between Symitar and Salesforce. However, after initial planning conversations, we developed a second critical objective for the project – to deploy a new Salesforce workflow that would allow its employees to track and manage the progression of new members through an onboarding journey. As a solution, they chose to implement an industry-standard 2-2-2 engagement model, which establishes member interactions in intervals of two days, two weeks, and two months from when they became a member.
Integration Manager and the API platform
Our team replaced the more expensive Informatica solution with Integration Manager, our digital core banking integration software for financial institutions, to address the connection issue. Integration Manager is a custom solution framework built on the PortX Integration Platform. Customers can tailor it to whatever their needs are – especially in banking core connections.
Integration Manager implements an API platform that includes System, Process, and Experience APIs to pick up the Symitar file from a folder, translate the data into a Salesforce file, and push it to Salesforce. The process is fully automated so that when the addition of a new member initiates the Symitar task, PortX pulls the file and uploads it to Salesforce.
This process enabled the credit union to upload accurate data from its Symitar core once per day initially. Today, the system uploads data four times per day, and it can load the full file in less than an hour. However, Integration Manager provides the flexibility to quickly evolve that frequency to near real-time as other internal applications become capable of handling this load.
Value stream mapping the Salesforce workflow
Once the member data was properly flowing from Symitar to Salesforce, the 2-2-2 member engagement model was visualized through value stream mapping to illustrate necessary process steps, measure wait and work times, and build out specific process requirements at each point it touches the member.
The credit union’s goal was to onboard a new member and implement value-add, personalized touchpoints along the 60-day journey. Together, we walked through the entire process. Value streaming helped to visually map the engagement points to the member and credit union needs at each step. On day two, week two, and month two, what does the member need to experience? What is the value to them? Are there process bottlenecks? Which “sticky” services should the credit union offer, and at which point in the journey?
Accurate member onboarding journey and increased ROI
With the data accurately and timely flowing from the credit union’s banking core to Salesforce, the team built a series of home pages, dashboards, queues, and reports that manage the member onboarding journey. Additionally, they now have accurate data in Salesforce Marketing Cloud that enables the marketing team to push content and marketing information more accurately to their members. Since the credit union rolled out this solution to all of its branch locations, usage of the internal tools has increased 117%.
Look for the big picture return on your investment
This project started with a technical problem – a broken connection between Symitar and Salesforce. Countless organizations and software solutions promise to “integrate” applications. However, following the API-led integration approach unlocks more than just an application connection. It makes it easy to ask yourself, “what is my return on investment with this project?”
Too often, we work with customers that procured a technology solution, but they don’t know how to translate that to business value. Or, worse, they purchased software, but don’t know why they need it. Start on the non-technical side of the problem to determine its true value to the organization and your members.
If you would like to learn more about how we can help you elevate your technical solution to something that can transform your organization’s member experience, read more about our PortX integration platform and banking core integration solution. Or, simply contact our team today to have a conversation.
