Xtend, Inc., a Grand Rapids, Michigan-based multi-owned cooperative CUSO, announced that today it will be partnering with its fellow CUSO CU*Answers, Inc. to provide outbound calls for the 165+ credit unions who are part of the CU*Answers core data processing client base. In an announcement to credit union partners earlier this week, CU*Answers CEO Randy Karnes and Xtend President Scott Collins stated that the two CUSOs would be working together to provide up to 500 outbound phone calls for every credit union that is under contract with CU*Answers for core data processing. Moreover, the calls would be executed at no charge to the participating credit unions. The credit unions will choose from one of five campaigns that make calls to near-members, to dormant members, to members with available contingent liability, to promote the use of electronic services, and to refer friends to the credit union.
Says Xtend President Scott Collins, “Earlier this summer Randy (Karnes) presented us with a challenge – if our marketing teams could come up with five outbound call campaigns to support his entire network, CU*Answers will pay for the first 500 calls for all of their credit union partners. We were already making calls for nearly two dozen of our mutual clients already, so it was an offer that was too good to pass up. Our team has been busy gathering the data, developing the scripts for each campaign, and doing all of the prep work in anticipation of making up to 82,500 calls on behalf of our partners. It goes without saying that we are excited about the opportunity.”
According to CU*Answers CEO, Randy Karnes: “It is easy during tough times to pull back, to go to short term savings, to down play opportunity expansion, and all of that is exactly what not to do. But that is easy to say, when you are not the leader facing the month-to-month economic realities. So our CUSO wanted to focus on a collaborative effort to reach out, to practice opportunity building, and to push for the future right now! This is only the beginning; we all need to go full force to the marketplace with credit union value – in this case just one call at a time, just 82,500 times to start!”
Collins reports that many credit unions immediately jumped at the offer and that his team will be contacting each of the other credit unions in the CU*Answers network to select a campaign and get into the queue.