Excellence in Operations & Member Experience Awards

As operations and member experience professionals, we are asked to develop solutions to a variety of problems. Often, we research situations and develop entirely new and possibly unique practices for our credit union’s operations and member experience areas.

Identifying these new approaches and recognizing their universal application to credit unions nationwide is the purpose of the CUNA Excellence in Operations & Member Experience Awards. One of our hallmarks is sharing the approaches to these solutions with our peers.

Categories

The CUNA Operations & Member Experience Council is comprised of professionals who work at small and large credit unions with a variety of roles and responsibilities. In recognition of this diversity, the awards will focus on “best practices” in five distinct areas of operations and member experience disciplines. Awards will be presented to credit unions achieving operations and member experience excellence in the following.

Two asset groups:

• Assets less than $500 Million
• Assets $500 Million or greater

And five categories:

• Branch Design: What non-traditional elements are you deploying in new branch and remodeled branch facilities to enhance member service? What have you done to “push the envelope” and differentiate the look of your branches?
• Contact Center/E-Support: What have you done to provide outstanding performance and set the standard for excellence in your call/contact center? How are you leveraging electronic channels to gain efficiencies or improve service?
• Digital: What digital transformation initiative have you implemented to drive digital engagement, digitize your credit union’s processes and simplified the digital member user experience to drive digital excellence?
• Sales and Service Management: What innovative approach have you implemented at your credit union to create, cultivate, and sustain a successful sales culture? What sales tools have you designed to assist staff with selling and customer relationship management (CRM)? What unique sales coaching or incentive programs have you developed?
• Miscellaneous: This category is for any operations and member experience success story you have that does not fit the other categories.

Eligibility

• Entrant’s credit union must have a current member in the CUNA Operations & Member Experience Council.
• Project must have occurred prior to the entry deadline of the current calendar year and have at least substantially, if not completely, occurred within the last 12 months and not in years prior to that 12- month period.
• Entrant may submit multiple entries. Each entry for consideration must be submitted separately.
• Entry(s) must be received no later than July 25 of the current calendar year.

The Selection Process

A panel of Operations & Member Experience Council Executive Committee members and industry professionals will select the Excellence in Operations & Member Experience Award winners in the two asset categories above. Selection will be based on candidates’ strategy, process, application, and results.

Winner Recognition

Award winners will be recognized at the CUNA Operations & Member Experience Council Conference. Each winning credit union will receive a complimentary conference registration. Winning entries will be featured in a press release and in CUNA News in addition to being showcased on the CUNA Operations & Member Experience Council site.

How to Enter

Complete the online entry form that includes the following. Limit your entry to no more than 2-3 pages including supporting documents.

• An Executive Summary that explains at a high level the challenge or opportunity your credit union faced, what you hoped to achieve, what alternatives were considered, how a decision was made and an overall assessment of the success of the initiative.
• Supporting documents (optional) – should help demonstrate the value or benefits described in your Executive Summary so that the submission can be thoroughly reviewed and understood. Supporting documents can include photographs, presentations, charts, and videos.

The entry form must be completed and submitted online. The steps below outline exactly how to enter.

1. Register an Account
2. Create Your Entry
3. Upload Digital Files
4. Submit Entry

Entries must be received no later than 11:59 pm CST on July 25, 2022.

Entrants will be notified of the status of their entry by August 5, 2022.

Questions

If you have questions about the entry procedures, please contact CUNA Council Administration at 1-800-356-9655, ext. 4018 or awards@cuna.coop.