BRENTWOOD, Tenn.–Franklin Madison, a provider of consumer engagement solutions and insurance products, is seeking eight credit unions to participate in a pilot program for its newly released FM PulsePoint offering, which is aimed at building engagement with members.

There is no cost to the participating credit unions, with the company saying it is seeking at least half of the pilot participants to be non-customers of Franklin Madison. 

“How do you create lifetime value for the member? Well, first you need the member to be there for a lifetime,” said Dawn Goldbacher, VP-head of insurance service sales.

Goldbacher, along with Erin Allen, VP-insurance distribution and market strategy, spoke with The CU Daily during America’s Credit Unions’ GAC in Washington.

According to Franklin Madison, the newly debuted PulsePoint, is a “powerful benchmarking tool designed to help credit unions assess and enhance member engagement.”

Taking a Snapshot

The company said provides an “engagement snapshot” to aid credit unions in understanding where they excel and where opportunities exist by benchmarking against industry peers. 

“By analyzing key performance indicators—product adoption, digital engagement, and member interaction trends—credit unions gain a clearer picture of how to enhance their offerings,” the company said. 

Five Categories

According to Franklin Madison, FM PulsePoint evaluates member engagement across five categories:

• Pay – Digital and traditional payment solution usage
• Save – Member participation in savings and investment programs
• Borrow – Loan activation and credit solution adoption
• Invest – Utilization of financial planning and wealth-building tools
• Protect – Adoption of financial security products such as insurance and fraud protection

Proof of Concept

Goldbacher said the pilot program is part of the proof of concept aimed at solving a challenge she acknowledged has been “discussed for a long time”: member engagement with their credit union.

“We did some research and we’ve spent some time kind of thinking about how can we make a difference? How could we help our credit union partners and prospects to better understand member engagement,” Goldbacher explained. “We came up with this concept FM PulsePoint, and really what it is is taking data and doing a dive…to really understand what the interactions look like, what do the offerings look like, are there solutions at the credit union and, then, what does activation look like?

“Information is great but actions are better,” Goldbacher added.

The objective, she said, is to move engagement from pure interaction to activation, adding isn’t that credit unions lack for data.

“I think it’s really about how do we take it all, put it together to create insights that are meaningful and then actionable, and help identify some of the gaps,” Goldbacher said.

‘Unique Perspective’

Asked by the Credit Union Daily what it is the new offering is seeking to better engage members on, Goldbacher said the idea is to give credit union leaders a “better line of sight into what their members are or are not using and into how strong are those engagements.”

Taking a Step Back

“It’s not just about our solution. We really want to take a step back and be objective and kind of give that point of view and be able to illuminate, ‘Hey, here’s what you’re doing, here’s where you stand,” Goldbacher said. “It’s benchmarking against industry best practices. This a real opportunity and it could be in any area. There may be things that we can help them with and there may be areas where that’s just not what we do, but now that you know better you can do something about it.”

The Genesis

Allen said the spark for developing FM Madison was research showing 44% of consumers want their financial institutions to provide insurance, which was up from 33% just a few years ago. The increase was driven by younger demographic groups’ desires, Allen stated, noting many are high income-earners.

“When we start thinking about those two groups, especially in the credit union space, this is who credit unions want to attract and retain as members and we’re really missing them because if we don’t offer those products they will go elsewhere,” Allen said. “If they’re opening up a new relationship with someone that potentially is going to offer all the same products that you offer, what is their reason to stay with you? You’ve opened the door to them leaving.”

Not Just About Insurance

Allen said FM PulsePoint is not just about insurance product sales but instead about filling all the gaps in a credit union’s offerings to members, which improves personalization.

That means identifying what’s important to the member(s) and analyzing where the credit union ranks in meeting needs, she added.

While insurance sales isn’t the goal, Allen said credit unions are missing a lot of opportunities in that vertical, which is one of the “gaps” it has identified.

“For example, if you’re looking at a mortgage, that is a great time, especially for first-time home buyers, to be thinking about life insurance,” Allen said. 

Goldbacher said Franklin Madison is “expert” at engagement, especially in insurance protection solutions, but it also has an entire division that’s focused on marketing services. Overall, it can pull all that data and expertise together to “paint the picture” for a credit union on how well it does at engaging members.

The ROI

When asked how the company demonstrates the ROI of what it offers, Goldbacher said it is able to provide “concrete statistics” around what future engagement looks like.

“It’s not just attracting these younger members, it is retaining them and really turning it more into a one-stop shop where the credit unions are really offering to members what they need throughout their life stages,” added Allen. “We’ve been talking about an aging credit union membership forever. I’ve been in the industry almost 30 years; that’s what we talk about every time we’re together. How many people do you hear from who say they got their first auto loan at a credit union or my parents got me an account at the credit union? Why didn’t they stay? It’s because we didn’t have what they needed at the time, we didn’t talk to them, we didn’t engage them digitally in a way in which they were comfortable.

“We’re still building beautiful branches and we can’t do online account opening,” Allen continued. “I have three Gen Z children and if they could have a free pizza but had to talk to someone, they would just not eat dinner. That beautiful branch is not going to attract that younger member and they’re not going to retain that younger member without great digital experiences.”

A Good Handle?

Overall, Allen said she believes credit unions have a “decent handle” on member engagement, but engagement is about more than clicks on emails or the website.

“If you’re bringing in members, let’s say through indirect loans, but you don’t then activate them to get them to open other services or account relationships, they’re gone in five years,” Allen said. “It’s about how do you create that lifetime value and find ways to create that stickiness to create that engagement.”

For more information on participating in the pilot, www.franklin-madison.com.