Inside Marketing: What 2020 taught us about branding and customer service in a crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic will be remembered in the future as one of the most uncertain times faced by individuals, organizations and industries around the world. From unique lockdown measures to social distancing practices and racing toward vaccine rollouts, generations saw a crisis first-hand like they never had experienced before.

While every industry was touched in some way by the pandemic, financial services felt a strong push to modernize and adapt to the changing situation. Credit unions, which historically held the competitive advantage of offering members exceptional customer service, had to find a new way to maintain this level of service without traditional face-to-face interaction. Any plans to increase mobile banking or improve the digital customer experience were placed on a fast track as these plans moved from “nice to have” to must have.

There are three key lessons every credit union can take from the upheaval of 2020 and apply to their marketing practices moving forward: 1) the importance of humanizing your credit union, 2) how to leverage reassuring messaging, and 3) the need to prepare messaging in advance.

 

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