CU Web Sites: Members Seek Improvements in Downloading
Time, Navigation and Educational Content

According to member feedback, credit union Web sites, as a whole, are doing a good job of meeting members' needs from a security, overall-appearance and information-quality standpoint. However, members feel there is some room for improvement with respect to how long it takes for pages to download, the ease of moving around the site, and the degree to which the site can serve as a financial-education source. This, according to member-satisfaction results compiled for the initial users of CUNA Research Online, CUNA Research's Web-survey product.

"Member satisfaction for most of the features falls between the 'somewhat satisfied' and 'very satisfied' range," notes Jon Haller, Director of Market Research for CUNA & Affiliates. "You've got to be impressed by that. At the same time, though, these benchmarking scores are 'averages' — many of the credit unions that have conducted the 'Web-site Evaluation' surveys ultimately had their own Web-site strengths and areas that could be shored up a bit. That is, they were above the norm on some features and below on others."

Go to http://advice.cuna.org/custom_research/web_surveys.html to find out how you can use CUNA Research Online to conduct your own "Web-site Evaluation" survey, and to see how the various features of your credit union's Web site stack up against others'. Projects typically cost just $500 - $600. Or call Meg Jelak at 800-356-9655, ext. 4172.

"We used to do our Web surveys ourselves," notes Beth Fordham, Marketing Project Manager/Webmaster, from $300 million SAFE Federal Credit Union in Sumter, South Carolina. "But they only allowed responses to be sent back to me via e-mail. So we would have had to manually tally the results, answer each e-mail, and do the analysis separately. CUNA Research Online saved me about 2-3 weeks of work!"

"We plan to use CUNA Research Online again in the future, and would absolutely recommend it to other credit unions! Last year a similar survey took a full month to obtain 226 responses and compile the results. Using CUNA Research Online, we got 300 responses and the results within 20 hours. It saved us time and effort, and allowed us to view the survey results as they were coming in, instantaneously."

And Cindy Class, Senior Marketing/Web Coordinator for State Department Federal Credit Union, a $470 million credit union located in Alexandria, Virginia, states, "CUNA Research Online is a good product for our web site. It gave us a quick and inexpensive view of our members' online needs. I liked being able to go online and view the findings throughout the process."

Other CUNA Research Online clients include:

Easy-to-use templates, designed by CUNA to save you time and effort, are available for "Web-site Evaluation" and "PC Banking/Bill Payment" surveys. You can also design your own fully customized survey.

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