SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union

Using IntarsiaT to Meet the Needs of Its 250,000 Members

SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union (formerly Orange County Teachers Federal Credit Union - OCTFCU), the seventh largest credit union in the United States with $3.1 billion in assets, is an organization deeply rooted in the credit union philosophy and built on providing the best possible service it can to its members.

"Our goal is to have information on our members and product participation at our fingertips," says Lisa Otomo, Director of Marketing, SchoolsFirst. "This allows us to make educated decisions with regards to product enhancements, introductions, and promotions."

In order to meet its goal of providing the best possible member service, the credit union was looking for a Member Relationship Management (MRM) system. The system needed to be able to work together with the credit union's Symitar core processing system and to combine all existing member information from four platforms into an easy-to-use interface that all credit union team members and branches could utilize to offer members advice and guidance as well as for marketing purposes.

With this goal in mind, SchoolsFirst implemented SEDONA® Corporation's MRM system, Intarsia. Intarsia, which serves as the credit union's Member Information Management System (MIMS), has helped the credit union by providing timely and appropriate information for better decision-making.

Intarsia is a comprehensive Internet-based MRM solution that helps aggregate silos of information to provide a single, consistent source for customer or member information. The system includes all the data analysis functionality of MCIF technology such as profitability analysis, householding, and visual profiling, but in addition, it provides Internet read-and-write access for any authorized user within a financial institution. As such, Intarsia provides quick and easy access to critical and operational information to allow all bank or credit union personnel to make efficient and effective business member- or customer-centric decisions.

Institutional-Wide Knowledge

SchoolsFirst has 14 power users of Intarsia that are responsible for their division (telephone service center, lending, information services, operations, member relations, finance, etc.) and for running queries and reports for the division. Using Intarsia's robust functionality and portal technology, these users can query and create reports of member information and share that information with anyone in the credit union who may benefit from that knowledge.

Intarsia is accessed using a Web portal. This portal is personalized for each individual user and displays links to files, reports, and applications within the credit union and also to the Web pages each user chooses to access. It also allows users to distribute any information (such as new product rollout information, rate sheets, and ads) that need to be shared with Intarsia users the organization.

"Intarsia enables us to have very quick and easy access to information about our members," said Lisa Kiesling, Marketing Research Analyst, SchoolsFirst. "Before using Intarsia, requests for information about our members would go to the Programming Department and which often times can take a while to get. Now, any user in the credit union can do a query and, within minutes, have the information they need in order to complete a marketing campaign or any other project."

Successful Programs

SchoolsFirst has used Intarsia to develop several successful programs, including: Managing the staffing needs of SchoolsFirst's telephone service center. Using Intarsia, the credit union is able to determine when share certificates are maturing and then use this information on a daily basis to appropriately staff the call center. This enables SchoolsFirst to provide the best service to its members and to guarantee that there are minimal delays in answering the needs of its members.

A direct mail campaign to members about new ATM locations. SchoolsFirst used Intarsia to target only those members in the surrounding areas of the new ATM openings, and send direct mail flyers notifying them of the new ATM locations. Using Intarsia's Visual Profiling feature, it was easy for SchoolsFirst to pinpoint only those members that were in the surrounding locations of the new ATMs

Development of an auto loan retention program where SchoolsFirst will be sending out a mailing to members before their auto loan expires. Intarsia's rich functionality makes it easy to search a database for customers or members meeting specific criteria. Before using Intarsia, the credit union had to wait for a few weeks to receive data. Intarsia helps to alleviate internal requests and provides timely and actionable data.

A mailing to members with greater than $10,000 in deposits to advertise the credit union's investment services group. Before using Intarsia, the marketing department would once again ask the Programming Department for this list. Intarsia enabled the marketing department to quickly pull that information and turn it into a mailing without using valuable Programming resources.

Visual Profiling

Additionally, the credit union utilizes Intarsia's Visual Profiling feature to develop critical reports that assist the management team with important business decisions. This feature allows the credit union to develop visual profiles of members and prospects by integrating internal and external content on a live map. This helps SchoolsFirst to see where members and prospects are in its marketplace so that it can understand such things as new accounts and attrition relative to competitors as well as where its most profitable customer segments are clustered.

Using Visual Profiling, the credit union can color code or filter information by profit, age range, or any attribute to further focus an analysis. Additionally, a user can automatically publish profiles on a regular schedule for those individuals within the credit union who need to act on the information.

SchoolsFirst uses the Visual Profiling capabilities to develop reports such as:

• Geographic member penetration reports. SchoolsFirst was considering opening a new branch in southern Orange County and wanted to see how many of its members lived in that area and would benefit from the new center. SchoolsFirst used that information to make plans for building new branch in the most beneficial area for the members.
• Branch-specific profitability reports. The credit union's President/CEO requested a profitability report showing the average profitability of members within a 3-mile range of a SchoolsFirst branch. Using Intarsia, they next developed a report showing the average profitability of all of the credit union's 250,000 members. The credit union compared this information and determined that their most profitable members live within a 3-mile range of a branch. This information can be a useful resource in helping the credit union determine future plans for new branches.

Profitability Analysis

Another key feature of Intarsia that SchoolsFirst uses is Profitability Management. Intarsia enables the credit union to calculate and make use of account, customer, and household profitability measures. The system allows SchoolsFirst to recognize which members and products are the most profitable and which are the least profitable - and why.

"Intarsia allows us to determine who our most profitable members are, what our most profitable member segments are, and what are our most profitable products," said Kiesling. "Information such as this is invaluable in developing our retention and acquisition programs. It also gives us the critical information that helps management support their decisions to move forward with our plans."