Monterey Credit Union

Six years ago if you had applied for a loan at Monterey Credit Union you would have received prompt, courteous service, but not much else. Cross-selling value-added products like credit insurance wasn't part of the culture at Monterey CU.

"We were strictly order takers," recalls Chief Executive Officer Stewart Fuller."Our credit insurance participation was about seven percent."

Fast-forward to 2005. The six-branch, $200 million community-based credit union now boasts a 55-percent credit insurance rate, which translates to about $33,000 monthly. What happened? This amazing transformation was the result of Monterey CU's deliberate effort to forge a sales culture where none had previously existed.

The first step was signing on Finegold for intensive training. Then Finegold’s reps worked with Monterey CU's staff to provide ongoing sales training and support. A long-term incentive program was developed and new member service representatives were hired who were specifically trained in sales. Meanwhile, Kuepfer rewrote the loan and collection guidelines to reflect the CU's new focus on selling.

"We're a needs-based CU, and we've really trained our employees to ask questions, listen for members' needs and advise accordingly,” explains Fuller. He thinks that that a 55-percent credit insurance participation is “about right” noting that the key is to promote the benefit without pushing it on members.

"Now that there are better loans on the books and our loan officers are meeting credit penetration and cross-selling goals each month,” Fuller says, “we've cut our losses in the collections area by two-thirds."

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