Last week CU*Answers kicked off a new initiative designed to expand the opportunities its credit union owners and clients have for interacting with CUSO.

“This initiative is a response to our desire to work harder than ever to give credit unions ways to interact with us in new ways,” said Dawn Moore, CU*Answers EVP of Client Experience. “One of my favorite things about the boot camp events we did a few years ago was how they gave credit unions an insider’s look at us, while also exposing us to the unique point of view that comes from sitting in a credit union professional’s seat. As a product designer and now a client experience advocate, those relationships are very valuable to me, and I look forward to building more of them in the future.”

The overall goal of these focus groups is to give credit unions regular opportunities to have open conversations with CU*Answers subject-matter experts and product designers and give them an insider’s view of the project management and design process. The events will also provide networking opportunities for clients, training on best practices for using CU*BASE and related tools, and will identify audiences for special communications and subject-matter experts that want to participate more actively in our product design efforts.

Said Moore, “As the name implies, these are intended to be conversations on specific topics: credit union core disciplines, tools for members and employees, and the current hot topics that people are buzzing about.” Over the years CU*Answers has done face to face events, regional events, webinar events, hybrid web/in-person events, and collaboration email groups. “For this new series we’ll be trying all of those methods and maybe more. There’s no one size fits all,” said Moore.

An early win for the initiative was the recent formation of the “Conversation on HR” collaboration email group launched in August, which already has 72 clients participating in the group!

Other groups are still forming but there are at least 15-20 groups planned on various topics, from lending and collections, from plastics to bill pay, from teller/member service to the online member experience. Clients will start seeing invitations later this fall and continuing through the 2023 calendar year and beyond.