As a lifelong UCLA fan and later alumnus, I studied their long-time basketball coach John Wooden. Basketball coaches generally don’t see beyond the 94 by 50 chunk of wood in front of them. But Coach Wooden was different. He saw basketball as an analogy for life. One of my favorite quotes from Coach was, “Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.”
I hear conflicting wants and needs from members. Some members want us to expand our branch network and add or expand services they want. Other members want us to do nothing and stay the same. Unless I’m missing something, both cannot happen.
A marketing technology firm survey revealed that one in five credit union members feel their credit union is failing to provide needed services and adequate information to help them reach their personal financial goals. The survey suggested there is still a wide gap between what people want and what credit unions and banks actually deliver.
In order to provide those services that our members want, we need to change and not because of our name change, as some members have suggested. We recently upgraded our credit cards so that they now show on a consolidated account statement, which makes it easier to make payments. By the end of the year, we will have introduced digital wallets such as Apple Pay, Android Pay, and Samsung Pay; moved our data center to a more secure location which has state of the art security; and painted and carpeted two of our branches.
After hearing member input on our East Contra Costa branches, we are planning on consolidating the Pittsburg and Antioch branches next year. Then, we will be looking for a branch location in Brentwood. While these changes may sound overwhelming, be assured we analyze all changes with the best interest of all of our members in mind.
Changes can be painful. You may have been unable to activate your credit card or were inadvertently charged a fee at one of our surcharge-free ATMs. We are getting those items corrected as quickly as possible. Our entire staff has been working hard to ensure a minimum of disruption while these changes are being implemented.
Apple founder Steve Jobs said years ago, “For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.” Agreed.