CU*NorthWest and CU*SOUTH announced a unique new partnership model focused on collaboration in the delivery of Client Services to over 50 credit unions using the CU*BASE® core software platform.

“This is an exciting adventure for our firms,” said Greg Smith, President and CEO of CU*NorthWest. “We both started out building a new kind of business and today we are coming together to do it smarter, faster and better. This is the first step in a collaboration that we hope yields innovation and improvement to the sales, delivery and support of CU*BASE for our customers.”

“We’re practicing what we preach to our credit unions,” added Leo Vaulin, President and CEO of CU*SOUTH. “Our CU*BASE software makes it easy for credit unions to work together to leverage core competencies. One CU may have a great marketing expert; another may be focused on compliance. The peer-to-peer collaboration tools native to our shared CU*BASE core make it easy for CU’s to form operating agreements to barter these resources.”

“Now, we’re applying the same collaborative model to our own business,” continued Mr. Vaulin. “The CU*BASE solution really appeals to credit unions looking to upgrade their core to a full-featured, fully-integrated solution at a very attractive price. We looked at our conversion calendar and our new employee onboarding solution, and asked ourselves – ‘how can we be smarter about this?’ – and turned to our CUSO partners.”

“CU*NorthWest had developed an industry-leading client interaction methodology,” said Mr. Smith. “We were happy to share our training, procedures, best practices – and the experience of our employees – with our partners in the South.”

“When you start a partnership like this, there’s a natural tendency to say, ‘my way is better’ – and then you waste a lot of dickering over details,” added Mr. Vaulin. “When we first met, I told my partners – ‘I want you in the driver’s seat. I want to learn from you. ’ “

The partners agreed on a shared client delivery model, including a common service delivery and knowledge base system bundled with the CU*BASE core software. The CUSO partners use AnswerBook to manage client support requests. Once the questions are answered, many are promoted to a knowledge base that’s shared by all CU*BASE credit unions and support staff across the entire cuasterisk.com CUSO network.

“We’re delighted with the results so far,” noted Mr. Vaulin. “More important, we’re seeing the results in the quality and speed of our responses to our credit union clients.”

“Now, we’re looking to extend this model to a collaborative core conversion project that both firms are studying,” concluded Mr. Smith.