Imagine that you’ve been asked to lead a credit union in the middle of a worldwide pandemic. With a rich background in financial and nonprofit marketing, Kristen Heisey has been steering Everence Federal Credit Union towards new heights for the past two years. Under her leadership, the credit union has not only navigated through post-COVID challenges but has also embraced a vision of sustainability and relevance in a competitive market, putting CX at the heart of the change.
Kristen instituted innovative programs like Connect 30, Branch Reimagined, Reach 2030, and Innovation Teams, to achieve breakthrough growth and impact Everence’s culture.
Here are three thought-provoking questions that Kristin’s experiences and insights might inspire:
🔹 How can organizations go beyond traditional CX metrics like NPS and CSAT to deepen relationships with their customers?
🔹 What strategies can leaders employ to integrate empathy and genuine care into their customer experience, rather than just pushing products?
🔹 In what ways can financial institutions leverage unique offerings, such as charitable credit cards, to differentiate themselves in the market?
Tune in for a conversation filled with actionable strategies and inspirational leadership perspectives!
Show Notes:
Contact info: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristenheisey/
website : https://www.everence.com/
Transcript
Note: This was AI-generated and only lightly edited.
Mark Slatin:
Well, today on the Delighted Customers podcast, I have a very special guest, Kristen Heisey, who is the president and CEO of Everence Federal Credit Union. And before that, well, she brings 25 years of experience in related fields in financial and nonprofit marketing, business development. And she joined Everence from People’s Bank, which was headquartered in York, PA. where she led marketing, communication, and client experience. And so, so excited to have you on the show. Welcome aboard.
Kristen Heisey: Thank you so much, Mark. It’s great to be here today.
Mark Slatin: So I know there are so many people listening who are in the CX space, who are CX leaders, like you had that. So you have the unique perspective of having had customer experience, client experience as part of your responsibility previously, and now you’re sort of in that seat, uh, as president and CEO of the credit union. Uh, and so I know there’s a lot of CX leaders who would love to pick your brain. So I’m going to sort of be the proxy for them as we go through some questions and you share answers, but, um, I shared a little bit about your background. Please fill us in on kind of what I missed and, um, maybe, you know, how you ended up in the place you are today.
Kristen Heisey: Sounds great. So, yes, I’ve been in my role for the last two years at Everence Federal Credit Union. We are a faith-based credit union with a nationwide presence. And we are part of a larger organization known as Everence, which is also a faith-based financial organization that really provides values-based financial planning, socially responsible investing, and many other financial services for people, organizations, churches. So a unique field, and it’s been really exciting to transition from a marketing and a CX role to the CEO role, really focused on the credit union portion of Everence. And I’m actually the first CEO to come from the outside. So that is also unique because culture and understanding what’s important to an organization and their history is very important. And so coming in from the outside, I’ve been very sensitive to that as I’ve taken over this leadership role.
Mark Slatin: So you’ve already got me curious about what it must have been like when you first landed there. What kind of emerged as the big things that you felt you needed to focus on?
Kristen Heisey: Yes. So when I came in 2022, we were just coming out of COVID. And it almost felt like I had come into a a morgue setting. It was very quiet. People were very inward. I think they were encouraged to stay in their cubicles and offices and not interact. And so there was also a lot of leadership change. And so I think there was a lot, the morale was low. I think there was some like, just like what’s going on because the leader who had only been in the CEO role for a year had decided to move on and another senior leader. So there was a lot of change very quickly. And so there was just like, a little on trust. And, you know, like we just got used to a new president and now another one has come and this person has come from the other side. So that was definitely being empathetic on what was actually happening emotionally for people and what they had just come through from a COVID perspective. And not having that social piece was once one piece. The other piece that I came in really understanding is the fact that in general, banks and credit unions, the number of them is shrinking and more and more mergers are happening, less financial institutions are able to stand on their own. And so coming in, I knew that we needed to really look at how do we remain sustainable. I came into a great organization that is operationally very sound, financially sound. So it wasn’t a crisis situation, but just knowing that we can’t rest on our laurels, that what worked in the past is not maybe going to work in the future and that we need to make sure we stay relevant so we can continue to grow and not just survive, but actually thrive. So that was my mindset as I came in, but I also knew that I needed to do that slowly. and really take some time to get to know the organization.
Mark Slatin: Excellent. Okay, so you take over and you’ve got empathy as an important, which is really makes perfect sense in the middle of COVID. I mean, what company didn’t need empathy from their leader? But in particular, you’re going through so much change so quickly, right? And so tell me about what today I hope we can talk a little bit about. You and I had talked previously about this idea of metrics and how there could be a trap, this metric centric mindset. And there’s sort of a double-edged sword to that. But before we get into that, I want to talk a little bit about how you, you know, coming from the banking industry myself, it was kind of quickly obvious to me back however many years ago when I got into banking that there isn’t a lot of differentiation between the products that banks offer. In my mind, banks really need to differentiate on the experience. Is that what you saw? And then in what ways did you see Everence and do you currently see Everence as differentiating from other credit units and other people in the banking industry?
Kristen Heisey: Yes, great question. And I totally agree. Financial services is a commodity. We’re all offering checking accounts and credit cards and car loans. So why would they choose one over the other? And that really is at the heart of a lot of the work we’ve been thinking about and working on over the last two years. Because as we think about relationships, a lot of people have multiple financial relationships. They don’t have all of their financial relationship with one institution. But where is the share of wallet? And is most of it with one, or is it spread out? And is it just based on convenience? What’s the least friction possible? And that’s the reason they’re going to go to a place. And so how do we differentiate? It’s really through an exceptional member experience and through also some variation in our product offering. Because we are faith-based, we do some things differently. For example, we have a credit card. We call it the My Neighbor credit card. And 1.5% of every transaction goes to their favorite charity. There’s a lot of rewards cards out there that go to ourselves, but we did a twist on it. And our member can pick their favorite charity and we will send a check once a year to their favorite charity based on how much they use their card. So there can be those kinds of things that set us apart. But at the end of the day, it’s also about the relationship you’re building. And so it’s about reducing friction, but it’s about having that deep relationship where you trust the people you’re working with. And when it comes to money, trust is at the heart. You need to trust your financial institution that they’re going to keep your money secure, they’re going to be confidential, and they’re going to have your best interests in mind. So that is definitely an important piece as we think about differentiating what we have to offer.
Mark Slatin: So I’d love to pick your brain on this idea of CX metrics. In the world of CX, there’s lots of metrics that have pretty much become jargon in our world. It’s what we know, but for other people, it’s considered jargon. And it’s things like Net Promoter Score and CSAT and journey mapping and VOC and all these other terms that really don’t mean a lot to other people. And so I’d love to talk about how you view CX metrics, someone who’s come from the side of both CX and now you’re in the decision maker seat as CEO and president. For any business to thrive, effective communication is key. Not just for success, but for maintaining a healthy, respectful work environment. And that’s where Service Skills comes in. A proven e-learning platform that’s transforming organizations through micro-learning modules. Think about it. Are your customer service interactions up to par? How inclusive and collaborative is your workplace? Service Skills offers hundreds of courses on everything from customer satisfaction and team building to management and respectful workplace practices. Validated by millions, these courses empower your staff to excel and communicate effectively, enhancing both personal and company-wide success. And the best part? It’s all available at your fingertips with affordable pricing and flexible options that fit your organization’s needs. Elevate your team skills, boost workplace respect, and foster a culture of diversity and inclusion. Join the ranks of satisfied clients who’ve seen tangible results in performance and communication.
Kristen Heisey: Yes, and you’re so right. For CX professionals, we throw around a lot of terms that most people have no idea. They have no idea what NPS means, NPS score. And they are really helpful metrics, and I really value them. But I also came into an organization that that wasn’t the terminology they were using. They definitely are doing CSAT. on a regular basis, and we’re getting good results, good scores from that. But we know as CX experts that it goes so much further than just customer satisfaction. And one of the things that I was really going deep into at the bank I was working at was, what does the relationship actually look like? They could say they’re satisfied, But at the end of the day, where are they going to go the next time they have a financial need? Are they going to come to the bank? Are they going to go down the street to another institution or go online? And so there’s a lot of nuance and a lot of data analytics that need to happen beyond just the feedback you get qualitatively from a member. And so I am very interested in things like, how many services do we actually have with our member? And when a brand new member opens up an account, that 90-day window is really important. That’s where you have the most chance to deepen that relationship. And how are we doing at deepening the relationship? Are we going deeper or are we just order takers? And that was one of the things that as I came into this organization, I noticed that we were very good at just serving whatever the request was of the member. But going deeper, listening for cues as to like, is there a life stage change here? You know, is someone getting married, having a baby, retiring, changing a job? Those are all triggers for us to have a deeper conversation and to help them as their financial needs change. But the mindset wasn’t quite there for that. And so to institute a metric right now before we lay the foundation of why that’s important and how we need to think differently and have conversations differently and then add those deeper CX metrics in are going to be really important.
Mark Slatin: Excellent. And, you know, in what occurred to me in the term that I’ve become familiar with and I like to use is enablers versus outcomes. So, you know, what are these things that enable success? And we talk about improving NPS and improving customer satisfaction scores and doing things like journey mapping activities. Those are all things that can enable us to be better at what we do. But What are the outcomes? How do we actually change the experience for customers to make it a better experience and to drive loyalty and earn loyalty and trust from customers? Can you say more about how does that land for you and your executive team?
Kristen Heisey: Yes. One of the metrics in our customer satisfaction survey that we’re tracking right now is, a question that we ask of our members, what was your experience in us helping to solve your problem? And that felt like it was going a little deeper. And we’ve seen those scores go higher in the last several months. And that was a huge win because that means we’re having deeper conversations. We’re trying to not just do what’s easiest, but really listen hard and then come up with different solutions. So that’s one thing that we’re doing to really think beyond just, oh, yeah, we got a four-star rating. We’re doing a great job. Yeah, we need to go deeper.
Mark Slatin: What are some of the misconceptions about trying to improve CX and drive loyalty so you can grow in the areas you need to grow as a banking leader, as a credit union leader? What are some of the misconceptions that people might have about CX?
Kristen Heisey: Well, I think the big hurdle is the bad word of selling. And people, I think a lot of the experience, I mean, there’s definitely part of your customer experience is related to technology and having that frictionless experience. But so much of it is human interaction. And I think we view having deeper conversations as trying to push product. And and that’s something that it’s really about caring for for your customer and wanting the very best for them. And understanding that they have needs and and that we need to go deeper to understand what those needs are and it’s caring for them, you know, a lot of the people who work. at Everence, they are there because they believe in the mission and they want to help people and they want to have an impact on people. And so we are starting to focus a lot on stories of impact and how we are making a difference in people’s lives. And so that changes the motivation of why we wanted to have, create a wonderful customer experience for people. It’s not just because we want to hit a certain sales goal. So having an authentic understanding of the motivation behind what we’re doing is really important. We’ve set out a, what we call a big hairy audacious goal, which we’re calling Reach 2030, to grow to a certain level by the year 2030, but it’s with impact. And it’s not just to grow for growth’s sake. There’s a quote, you don’t get better by being bigger, you get bigger by being better. And so continuous improvement of improving the member experience is going to help us to grow, to become more sustainable. But we have to focus on the right things first. And I think it’s very easy, especially for leaders, to just go right to the numbers. And I don’t care how we get there. We just need to get to this number. I also, going back to empathy, you know, we can build out these amazing member experience journeys. If we don’t have the staff properly trained, that they know how to have the conversations, and that there’s enough staff to do the work, it doesn’t matter. And they’re going to give up. And they’re not going to have that experience we need. And so when I first started, I did a listening tour. And I met with every member of our credit union, plus leaders across all of Everence, to hear where are the gaps? Where are we not meeting the needs? You know, one of the challenges I heard in our branches is the branch managers are often on the teller lines. We’re not staffed in a way that they can sit down and have a private conversation with members. They were actually trying to open up accounts as people were standing at the teller line. That’s not a great experience. And, you know, I remember as as a new member coming in to open up my account there and I stood at a teller line, I was like, this is not this is not a great experience. I should be in a private space. where I can sit and be comfortable and feel like I’m having a private conversation. But when you’re not properly staffed, those kinds of things happen. So I think having some practicality with your plan and making sure you have the resources to implement your plan are really important.
Mark Slatin: So, yeah, I’m really curious about, and that’s really helpful to hear about, the observation that you had where, since you know it’s important to listen deeper, but you had a situation where you had branch managers on the teller line doing transactional work, when that opportunity, and you mentioned earlier the importance of the onboarding segment of the customer’s journey being critical, well, you’re missing that key opportunity when they’re maybe first, you know, opening the account for the first time and maybe joining you for the first time to understand more about their lives and their personal goals, right?
Kristen Heisey: Exactly.
Mark Slatin: Yeah.
Kristen Heisey: So, oh, go ahead.
Mark Slatin: No, go ahead. Go ahead.
Kristen Heisey: So yes, we actually right now, we’re calling it Branch Reimagine. So we have a lot of work happening right now and thinking about reimagining the onboarding process of a new member and what does that experience look like when they’re opening up an account? Where do they sit? What kind of conversation do we have? We created a nice guidebook that really walks them step-by-step through what to do after they become a member because there’s a lot to do. There’s a lot to remember. you’re just trying to get the account open. You don’t really want to understand all the nuts and bolts, but to have a really nice explanation after the fact that’s very easy to read is really important. So we’re starting to build that out. And I would say the big thing that we’re thinking about differently is becoming financial mentors and looking at that as our role versus here to do transactions, here to open up accounts. And Financial Mentors is really about financial wellness and making sure people have what they need and they understand how credit scores work, they understand how to do budgeting. We have worked with a lot of people who are new to the country and don’t even know what a credit score is, do not have any credit history, And we help them understand, how do you build credit? How do you budget? How do you get to the point where you can buy a car or buy a home? And that is what excites our team and builds so much energy. But there’s a lot of steps in between to prepare to make that all happen. And it starts with equipping our team in the proper way to become those financial mentors. So we can’t just say, we now want you to be financial mentors. We need to make sure they’re properly trained to do that.
Mark Slatin: Yeah, I love that. I love that branch reimagined. And obviously, the customer experience is a big part of how you reimagine the branch experience. So how do you begin to, like, what are some strategies that you could share that maybe people within banking or even outside of banking might be able to use as a way to improve CX, ultimately grow? And you mentioned earlier kind of share of wallet, how are they engaged across the enterprise? What are some strategies? You mentioned a couple already, but what are some strategies they might be able to use?
Kristen Heisey: Yeah, so the one is, you know, in our REACH 2030 plan, we actually are focused on three key strategies. And the first is increased relevance. And that is really about understanding your customer relationship and what kind of relationship do you have with your customer? Is it very shallow or is it very deep? And so we are really starting to measure, we came up with a metric of how do we define if we are the primary financial institution for that member? So getting clear on what do you want your relationship to look like and how do you actually measure it? And then having people aware of that and starting to track that and then changing your behaviors to see if you can deepen that relationship over time and track it through metrics. So an example of that is we just added credit score powered by Savvy Money and online banking. And so that just launched in July and Now our members can actually see their credit score right within online banking and see their whole credit report. And it’s offering, through automation, loan offerings to them if it’s a better rate than what is already on their credit score. And so they can click a button and say, I want to apply for a loan. So we are making it much easier for our members, but we also have a tool in there to create simulations. So if they’re thinking about taking on a loan, it’ll simulate what their credit score might look like if they do that. And so all of a sudden, our online banking has become more relevant to them and more sticky. And we hope through, if all they have with us is an auto loan, we hope that because of this credit score, we are becoming more relevant and they’re gonna maybe wanna add more of their financial relationship to Everence over time because of this new offering. So that’s one small example We’re working on many others to really become more relevant to our members. Youth to Young Adult is another area that we’re very focused on. We’ve done some journey mapping. And one of the things that we’ve identified is how cash has really changed with young people. You know, a parent used to be able to give their kid $5 to get into the football game. You now go to a football game and you need to digitally pay for that. You can’t just hand cash anymore. So parents need an option to digitally give their kids money. And so we’re looking at having an app that gives the ability for kids to have a debit card, and there’s a lot of parental controls, and it is encouraging them to save, to earn money through doing chores. So that, all of a sudden, we become much more relevant to that parent who has a need. So that’s one piece. The other is around team engagement. I know you’ve had some great guests on that have talked about the importance of employee engagement in the CX experience. And that is a huge piece of the work that I have done in the last two years. As a new leader, you can’t just come in with a vision if your team is not prepared for the change. So you need to walk them with you, and they need to understand the why, and they need to see that there is a vision for the future that might look different than today. And so how do we motivate them? And what motivates your team? And why do they choose to work where they work? And for Everence, the faith piece, the impact piece is huge. And so playing into that, leaning into that, impact stories, sharing the impact we’re having on members is huge. And it always needs to be front and center. You know, one of the things I hear from our team is they’re worried as we grow that we will lose who we are. And they’re going to lose that culture. And we’re just going to become like all the other big financial institutions. I don’t want that to happen. And so we have to work really hard at focusing on people and not just metrics. The metrics are important because that tells us, are we making progress? But that’s not the end all be all. And so finding that right balance is really important for leaders. And then the last is around operational excellence. That’s our last pillar. And I really see that as reducing friction. And it’s friction for our member base, but it’s also friction for our employees. Our employees do so many manual things that take them away from doing the good work of serving our members. And so how do we reduce that? and create efficiency so that they can really be fresh and ready to be there and provide that exceptional customer experience and really just nail those moments of truth that need to happen for our members.
Mark Slatin: So I love what you’re talking about. I love your vision for the company and just you’re talking about the importance of the why and really storytelling and connecting with those people. What are some sort of systematic ways that you have approached transforming the culture from which I could tell already you’ve done an amazing job from that kind of dim space during COVID when you first came in to brightening things up. What are some systematic ways that you’re doing this?
Kristen Heisey: So one of the ways we do that is on a monthly basis, we have an online virtual meeting for all credit union staff. We call it Connect 30. And it’s a play on our Reach 2030. And it’s also the fact it’s 30 minutes to connect. And during that meeting, we are covering how we’re doing. And we’ve created gauges to show how we’re doing on specific metrics. One of the things that is interesting about banking is you can have too much of a good thing. Sometimes you have too many loans or too many deposits. And so In our gauges, there’s actually red on both sides. And until we had gauges, that was really hard to explain to people. Like, we’re over our goal. Isn’t that a good thing? But in banking, you need to do it in balance. And so we have really worked to visually explain, in a really simple way, pretty challenging financial concepts. so that there’s more ownership and transparency in what’s actually happening in the organization. The other thing that we’ve done is we’ve created innovation teams. So we have 20 innovation teams working on different aspects of our REACH 2030 goals. We’ve invited anyone interested in the organization to participate on an innovation team. That’s empowering, and that really engages people at a totally different level. All of a sudden, we are asking an MSR, a member service representative that’s serving people in the front line, what they think about how we should roll out our youth celebration, which is a big event we have once a year to attract young people to open up accounts. or sitting on an employee recognition innovation team, or membership growth. And that’s also a great way that we’ve been able to bring individuals from other parts of Everence into our team to have better cross-collaboration and integration. We merged in 2010. But there’s still a lot of work to integrate. Sometimes we talk about silos. Silos definitely still exist. Even if you have the same mission, we’re on different systems, selling different products. Sometimes our customers, are the same, sometimes they’re not. So how do you connect? And so these innovation teams has been a wonderful way to connect across the organization and on our team. And some of our team members have never sat on a cross-functional committee before. So it’s very new to them. And we’re allowing some younger leaders to help lead some of those teams. So that’s a new experience for them. So we’re building the next bench of leaders as well, which is exciting to see.
Mark Slatin: How neat. So all those things really make sense. And they kind of prove the point, don’t they, that there’s no magic bullet. It’s both consistency across different platforms, different initiatives, and including engaging other people to get involved.
Kristen Heisey: You’re absolutely right. And it’s definitely a marathon and not a sprint. I would say just, you know, my personality, I love change. I love progress. I can put aggressive goals in, but I have learned over time that you have to go a little slower. You have to say things multiple times. You need to be consistent in your message. and it’s going to take longer than you think. If you want real change to happen and you want to bring people with you, you know, you can make change really fast and turn a bus really fast, but you lose half the people, or you can go slower and you keep a lot more of the people with you. And that’s really the approach I’m taking is more of a long view approach of change and transformation.
Mark Slatin: It makes a lot of sense. Go slow to go fast.
Kristen Heisey: Exactly.
Mark Slatin: Two questions I would like to double click on here really quick, go back, and I should have asked this earlier, but you mentioned one of the things you’re interested in is understanding the depth of the relationships you have with the members. Without giving any secrets away, what are some of the high levels that you tend to look at the depth of the relationship?
Kristen Heisey: So for me, one of the things we look at is number of transactions they’re doing in a month. So they may have a checking account, but if it’s a dormant checking account, that’s nothing’s happening. That’s not the same as a checking account that is being utilized. So usage is really important. Are they using technology? Do they have online banking? Are they doing mobile deposits? Or again, is it just like, yeah, I have a loan with you, but nothing else, and I’m not interested in anything else. So actually their behavior is just as important as how many services they actually have on the books. For us, we’re also very interested in how many services they are using in Everence overall. So beyond just credit union products and services, are they using financial planning? Are they investing through Everence’s Praxis mutual funds? Those kinds of things. So And there’s a lot of work being done in Everence to bring together all of that data into one CRM system. And so, you know, that again is challenging because we are different legal entities trying to come together because we are all serving an Everence client or member. So again, that takes a lot of time and effort, but it’s going to be worth it in the end. And then we’re going to be able to do more automation. with how we serve our member base, which is going to be exciting.
Mark Slatin: Yeah. Yeah. So all that is going to ring bells for people. This idea of different systems is not at all uncommon, whether you’re inside a banking or not. And I can relate, we worked hard to develop an index, what we call the Client Engagement Index, which was looking at how engaged they were, not from our standpoint by the products we sell, but from their standpoint on how they might view themselves as buying or purchasing different banking products, whether it be a commercial loan, a mortgage, a car loan, deposit relationship, CD, whatever wealth management. whatever it was, we try to categorize those and understand that. And then the next step was putting a weighting on, for example, if you have a, if you’re a business client, you have a deposit relationship with us, how many transactions do you have per month? You know, like, as you mentioned, so you can begin to get some, some idea of the value of the relationship, the depth of the relationship, as, as you mentioned. Those are hard and take a long time to put together.
Kristen Heisey: They do. It’s a lot of modeling. And then to continue to track those, it’s a lot of work, but you get a lot more rich data to work with and really know what’s actually happening with your customer base.
Mark Slatin: Well, this has been a fascinating conversation. So many gems here. Love your 2030 plan. I love what you’ve done to help sort of operationalize CX and the organization. And I know it’s still relatively early in your journey a couple of years in, but you’ve done so much already. I know the employees there must be so excited to have you as their leader. Um, I, uh, if you don’t mind sharing some of your knowledge, I like to end the podcast with the same question for everybody, which is what advice would you give to your 20 year old self?
Kristen Heisey: I love this question. So two pieces of advice I would give myself. The first would be to enjoy every stage and live in the present. I am a very goal-oriented person. And I think early in my career, I was so excited to get to the next stage, it was hard to enjoy where I was. I was just pushing, pushing, pushing to get to that next place. And I learned over time, I need to just stop and be present and enjoy the moment that the next stage will come. Just be patient. You still got to do work, put the work in, but don’t forget to enjoy where you are right now. And then the second is somewhat related, and that’s broadening my identity outside of work. I kind of laugh now, but my second job out of college, I actually, on my performance review, it was a glowing review, except my boss said I needed to get a life outside of work. that I just was focused way too much on work. And I love work. And it’s really a life passion for me. I see it more as a passion than a job. But he was so right. And I definitely have learned over time that I need to get out in nature. Many years later, I have two kids and a husband, and we bought bikes and a bike rack. And we love to go biking on the rail trail. And that just is life-giving for me and is just just added depth to my life. So having things outside of work are really important. So those are two pieces of advice I’d give for my insane 20-year-old self.
