Wasn’t there an ad in the ‘90s with a famous tennis player who said, “Image is everything”? Yes, it was the “lion-maned” Andre Agassi hawking Canon’s SLR cameras. Well, T&P Federal Credit Union ($9 million; 2,000 members; Big Spring, TX) is also well aware of its image – especially to its members. Adding advanced technology solutions to its in-house operations ensuring efficient, friendly service has a lot to do with the credit union’s image as a forward-thinking financial institution – and it has taken strides over the years to continue reaching this goal with various products and services.
According to T&P’s CEO, Sherry Roman, she believes that having such technology solutions improves her credit union’s standing in the members’ eyes. For example, T&P adopted a teller capture product (Teller C21) from Millennial Vision, Inc. in October 2008 to help promote this image – along with other security and operation reasons.
“When the members see that you have up-to-date equipment that provides great service, they know you’re moving forward,” Roman says. “For instance, with our teller capture technology from MVi, our tellers no longer have to go to the back and research a member request. Everything is electronically captured and archived so they can respond to a request immediately. That’s great service, which is certainly the reputation we want to have.”
MVi’s Teller C21 capture provides T&P’s tellers with the ability to scan their checks into a daily batch file at the time of deposit. It can also be integrated with MVi’s Receipt Capture product, which allows the ability to attach deposit items, generate receipts with signatures and create an individual teller balancing report prior to cash letter submission without the need to scan the checks twice.
Prior to incorporating Teller C21, T&P paid a local bank $175 per month to use a scanner to scan members’ deposited checks. Adding insult to injury, the scanner didn’t work well due to numerous issues with it. In addition, the tellers had to feed one check through at a time at the end of the day – which in Roman’s words, “was a real pain.”
“Fortunately, our credit union is small enough, so it wasn’t too bad,” she says. “But the slow process and the nagging hardware issues were prevalent enough that it was a pain, so something had to be done. That’s when we discovered MVi’s Teller C21.”
Since that time in 2008, T&P has gotten up-to-speed with Check 21 and its accompanying document management system – all with the help of MVi. The system also works perfectly with the credit union’s core processor, CUSA Technologies.
“With all the operation efficiencies and cost savings, another aspect of Teller C21 we enjoy is the safety factor,” Roman explains. “We were impressed with this aspect. This system has ensured that our documents are safe from fire or a natural disaster, housing them on back up servers in other buildings. This safety factor is big for us – almost as big as our newfound efficiency in serving our members’ requests.”
It wasn’t too long ago when simply finding a hardcopy check was a major ordeal for a teller. Today, with Teller C21 and its accompanying document management system, a request like this can be conducted and completed immediately all from the teller’s screen. “We can look back to any transaction at any time and it’s all there,” Roman adds. “We can research and retrieve anything almost immediately.
“That scanner from the bank we used to use was a terrible ordeal, having to painstakingly scan one check at a time and put up with all the trouble it gave us,” Roman says. “Teller C21 helps us in the long run with saving time and effort with member requests to easily research – not to mention the enhanced service we provide with it. We’re very happy with this solution and we highly recommend it.”
So it seems the T&P not only saved $175 per month by eliminating the bank’s troublesome scanner and saved itself a little time with Teller C21’s efficient check processing, but overall it has enhanced its image in its members’ eyes – which adds to the credit union’s value for future stability and growth.
