Scott Sylvester, chief operating officer of Consumers Credit Union, joins us to discuss mobile banking and working from home during the COVID-19 crisis. Listen today to see how ConsumersCU is protecting our employees and members on “Money, I’m Home! From finance to fitness.”

 

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00:06 Lynne Jarman-Johnson: Money, I’m Home. Welcome on in. I’m Lynne Jarman-Johnson with Consumers Credit Union from finance to fitness, and we are broadcasting through WebEx for the next few weeks because you know what? It’s really important that we take time to learn about leadership opportunities while we are facing “Stay Home, Stay Safe.” And joining us today is Scott Sylvester. He’s our chief operating officer with Consumers Credit Union. Scott, I’ll tell you, there has been a lot of change and a lot on your plate.

00:34 Scott Sylvester: Yeah, hi everyone, it’s good to be with you here. I’m also working remotely, and staying very, very busy actually, with the entire credit union, obviously, doing everything we can to serve our members.

00:48 LJ: I’ll tell you Scott, when all of a sudden you have to take a force of over 300 and say, “How do you work remote, and how do you serve your members?” Everyone is facing that right now in their business. What were the steps that you started to take as a leader to make some change that helped to transition people to work from home?

01:14 SS: Well, I have to tell you, we, a couple of years ago, we would have never envisioned something like this happening, but we did see that we wanted to change how people would work in our organization. We had some pretty key initiatives a couple years ago, and one of them was a mobility strategy, and that strategy was really to get all the folks in our corporate facility that support our employees in the retail offices and to work with members on a regular basis, we wanted to get all of those folks on laptops, so we did that back in 2017, and we sure are reaping the benefits of it today. So, all of our folks at our corporate office for the most part, I’d say 90% of them can take their laptop home, do a VPN encrypted connection to our office, it’s safe and secure, and serve not only the credit union on the daily paths that we need to get done, but serve our members a daily basis. It’s phenomenal.

02:09 LJ: You mentioned that mobility first, and you’re thinking about how to really work mobile, how about banking mobile? Because there’s been a strong investment from us in really helping people do that as well at home, wherever they are.

02:26 SS: Yeah, we’ve been doing that for years, Lynne you know that. With all the marketing we push for mobile apps, and online banking, and taking a picture of your checks with your phone to advance technology even at our ATMs for check deposits. So, we’ve definitely wanted to make banking friction-free for our members. It’s just how they want to bank, when they want, how they want. So, those initiatives have certainly been a big push, not just for the last couple of years, for I’d say the last 10. And, we’ve made some huge improvements over the last 18 months in new technology and upgrading our ATMs to allow for different types of things that can be done self-service. Being able to choose your own denominations is coming at the ATMS It’s already out there at several of them. And so, those things will allow members to transact without having to go into an office.

03:24 LJ: One of the new technologies in all of our drive-thrus is interactive tellers, and some people still don’t quite understand what that means, but it truly has been such a delight to be able to talk with the tellers that we know and love in technology, through drive-thrus.

03:44 SS: Yeah, again, we’re just so fortunate we made those decisions strategically in late 2018 and had a plan to roll out interactive teller machines, which are basically an ATM machine, but allows for video chat capabilities with a teller. And, we did that at every single one of our drive-ups. So, where you’re used to driving up and putting a tube canister in a tube that goes up and over to the teller that’s inside the building that you can barely see at the time, you don’t even see ’em, they’re just talking to you over audio, now you’ve got a really nice snapshot of a engaged employee from Consumers Credit Union working with you right on the screen. And, they can do everything that they were doing with the tube, so we were excited to roll that out to the efficiencies it gave us in the credit union to better serve members, but boy, the benefits today now with COVID-19, it’s eliminating that need for the physical interaction between our members and employees when we’re in a “Stay Home, Stay Safe” environment, it’s such a great benefit for our members and our employees.

04:57 LJ: Scott, one of the true, I think, ideals that we’ve learned in all of this very fast-paced change is communication and leadership. And, you really had to move very fast in helping communicate to employees, but also to members, “Here’s what to do in change.” What do you think the greatest tips are that you have been using through your knowledge and expertise?

05:26 SS: Well, I think we’re all using video conferencing more than we ever had before. So there maybe, it wasn’t so much of a need to use it before, some of our employees played around with it, but now we’re doing one-on-ones daily, we’re instead of walking up to a desk and giving people praise for the great job they’re doing, we’ll do a quick video chat with them and express that gratitude to those folks that are working so hard in these challenging times. So, I think that technology has obviously spiked tremendously in our organization, and I’m doing it on a daily basis. That would be one. And, just inspired by how engaged our employees are and how willing they are to serve our members. They’ve always been like that, but in a time of crisis like this, there’s so many folks that are just stepping up and asking how can they help. And so, we have individuals that are doing a completely different job than what they were doing two weeks ago, just because they’re willing to serve not only the credit union, but the members in any way, shape or form.

06:00 LJ: Have you found that easing fears is now part of a day … daily process? Everybody is wondering what’s going to happen next. And, how is it that you’re inspiring your teams?

06:41 SS: Well, it’s not just me, but it’s our CEO. We’re doing global calls on a regular basis. It’s staying in contact with your team and communicating as much as you can, not only reiterating our Governor’s message or our President’s message and the task team force messages supporting that we’re all in this together, we’re going to get through this, we’re going to be a better company, we’re going be a better country when we get through this. So, I think it’s just overly communicating with the team and giving them anything and everything they want. Now, if folks are not feeling well or are experiencing any type of sick symptoms, we want them to follow the guidelines and stay home and do the precautions that are required in the situation we’re in today.

07:29 LJ: So, your life, meaning work life and home life is drastically different. We love going in and seeing each other face-to-face. And, you’re at home right now, Scott. What are some of the things that you’re doing to keep yourself healthy, and well and your family too?

07:47 SS: Sure, well, yeah, my surrounding teammates are much different now with the wife, three kids, a dog, and a cat. So, it’s definitely a change. I don’t necessarily have a private office I can go to, so I’m kind of in the mix with everybody. But we just, we kind of plan out our day. I’m a project manager at heart, so I guess I’m probably driving them a little crazy that I’m trying to manage all the projects at home now, but we’re doing a lot now. Spring cleaning’s getting done, but, we’ve been fairly productive as a family. We’re having a lot of fun with it even though at times the kids are bored, they want to see their friends. But again, they’re using technology just like we are doing right now. They’re Facetiming each other, their friends. They’re on their Xbox playing video games against their friends. So, there’s a lot of things we can do in today’s world that certainly we wouldn’t have been able to do 20 years ago if we’re in the same situation.

08:44 LJ: So, when you look ahead and you see everything, let’s say, let’s just say everything goes back to normal, do you really think it will ever go back to normal? Or are we going to start using these tools more and more because we finally took the time to learn them?

09:00 SS: Yeah, I think we will have a new normal and that normal will be better than the normal we had before. I think people will consciously wash their hands more. I think shaking hands will maybe be something that’s not done as much, but that, I think that might be okay. And we always talk about during flu season about not spreading the flu. So as a country, I think we’re smarter because we’ve learned a lot. And, not that none of us were washing our hands, but again, it’s just that I think it’s ingrained in us now and I think so … Those takeaways are good, but it’ll be a new normal. I do think that we’ll have a nice economic rebound. It’s going to take a little bit of time. Right now, you kind of just got to take it day by day and stay positive, and to control the things you can control in your own environment, I guess.

09:52 LJ: So, to our members who are listening, and they are wondering, they may need a little extra help. Scott, what are your thoughts?

10:02 SS: Well, we’ve got a lot of programs out there today and a lot of them are posted on our website, so I think that’s a very good resource for you to go to, www.consumerscu.org. And we’re working with folks on all of the different loan types we have from mortgages, to car loans, to credit cards. We’re working with folks when it comes to immediate needs, where they have courtesy paid protection, certainly, if they need to get groceries. A lot of the programs we have in place will help during the assistance that the government’s going to probably do. So, if you’ve done your tax refund in the past using direct deposit, it appears that that’s how the assistance checks will be posted, is they’ll use that same information, so keep your eye on the news for that. But, it will most likely will direct deposit in the same location that your tax refund did or your tax payment came from, like if that was the case. So yeah, I think we’re here for you, our phones are open, we have text capabilities, you can text us, reach out to us any way you can. You can even set an appointment at an office if it’s absolutely necessary, but we think we can serve you best remotely at this point.

11:15 LJ: Scott, thank you so much, and thank you for your leadership. It truly has been an eye-opening experience for everybody. But to have the communication on a regular basis from those that lead is very important. So, thank you so much.

11:32 SS: Well, thanks for all you’re doing too, and I appreciate it.

11:35 LJ: Money, I’m Home from finance to fitness. Keep joining us every single week because we are here for you, and we’ll be doing special episodes during our “Stay Home, Stay Safe.” Thank you so much for Jake and Aaron for your production skills, and we hope you guys have a great day.

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