Credit Union Marketing to Businesses

I use a credit union for my business banking and I have to say that credit unions need to do a far better job of marketing to businesses and providing business related services. The only reason I use the credit union I use is the convenience that it is across the street from my business. If that was not the case, I would have closed my account with them ages ago due to their lack of understanding the needs of my business.

Here is how credit unions can support business banking needs:

1. Marketing to businesses is much different than marketing to consumers. Credit union marketing must discuss specific business banking needs and how your credit union will fulfill those needs better than large corporate banks. Show businesses how banking with your credit union is a friendly partnership in success and that your credit union is there to serve the business in any and every way possible, especially in providing credit and business loans so the business has access to capital for expansion and growth.

2. A credit union's staff needs to have employees that are trained specifically for serving businesses. They need to understand the language and financial needs of a business. Your employees need to know business as much as the businesses owners they will be serving. If a business owner starts talking about business financing, SBA loans, business lines of credit, payroll taxes, etc., your employees better know exactly what the business owner is talking about.

3. You need to provide far better and faster service to businesses than to consumers. When a CEO calls and you put him or her on hold as it takes your employee 15 minutes to figure out how to answer a question, you are wasting that CEO's valuable time and money and making your credit union look incapable of handling business needs. Again, it comes down to understanding the types of banking services businesses need and NOT treating them like a one size fits all consumer account. Yes, there is more financial risk for working with business customers, but there is also far more financial reward.

Peter Geisheker, CEO
The Geisheker Group Advertising Agency
"We don't help you compete, we help you dominate"
http://www.geisheker.com
(920) 471-1638