South Jersey FCU

It was on June 20, 1940 that the organization that we now call South Jersey Federal Credit Union was chartered and established. After undergoing numerous name changes and successfully weathering many economic downturns over the years, South Jersey Federal Credit Union is now a thriving, diverse, full-service credit union serving more than 54,000 members and over 700 employee groups throughout South Jersey. The credit union’s stated mission is to provide quality financial solutions and world class service to their members, while delivering their social commitment in the communities they serve. To be their branch and online software partner in their journey to continually deliver world class service, SJFCU has chosen Better Branches Technology, the recognized credit union industry leader in appointment handling and branch visitor queuing and management.

Erik Young, AVP of Sales & Call Center at SJFCU, wanted to find a solution that could help him and his team – which includes 24 contact center employees and 9 Branch Leaders – build a bridge between member interactions at the branch and over the phone, granularly track member visits and wait times, and boost member satisfaction and convenience levels. Erik was well qualified for the task since he has nearly 15 years of commercial banking and credit union experience working at many different banking positions. Erik recalls that “we reviewed a handful of visitor management and CRM vendors, and in the end we felt that Better Lobby was the best choice over more expensive and complicated systems. We wanted a solution that was easy to implement and one that our staff would really use, and that is exactly what we found with Better Lobby.” As a browser-based system designed specifically for credit unions, Better Lobby is quite intuitive for CU employees; in fact some credit unions find that they can train their staff in as little as thirty minutes. 

Better Lobby includes dozens of reports, all of which are credit union-specific, and also supports custom SQL queries since it is based on the industry standard Microsoft SQL Server database. Erik confirms that “we really love the reporting capabilities of Better Lobby and we use these reports to help ensure that our member experiences are positive. Having a powerful visitor management system in place really makes our lives easier.” Branch Leaders and operations staff use the Better Lobby reports to more accurately staff their branches and to pinpoint exact “reasons for visits.” According to Erik, “we like the ease of use of the software and so far it has exceeded our expectations.” The credit union is also exploring ways to maximize Better Lobby’s built-in cross-selling features going forward which is important both at the branch level and in their contact center, which handles over 50% of the credit union’s loan volume.

The next step for SJFCU is to implement the Better Lobby Mobile Appointment Booking Tool. “We are excited by the opportunities that appointments bring to our service offerings. We feel that appointments will help shape the member experience for the better, reduce branch wait times for our busy members and deliver a new level of convenience to our members,” says Erik. As the project continues to roll out, Erik is confident that all will go smoothly: “so far this has been the smoothest project that I ever been involved with in my career – the team at Better Branches Technology is very responsive, knowledgeable and detail oriented.” He concludes that “A+ is where I would rate the project management, technical support and customer service skills of people at Better Branches Technology.”