Diversified financial services company United Services Automobile Association (USAA) aims to deepen primary banking relationships with its members. USAA’s performance consultants met with the bank stakeholders and determined through focus groups, scorecard results, and manager feedback that its credit card course was outdated and did not focus on relationship building. The facilitator-led curriculum was put together over several years piece-by-piece. Though the training was revised on an ongoing basis, the look and feel of the lessons were different and did not provide an organized learning flow.
The training also needed to be updated to incorporate specific government-mandated statements that must be read during each transaction to stay compliant with the law. This put the burden on instructors to verbally add new information without having the support of learning activities or assessments.
In response, USAA’s instructional designers partnered with an outside vendor to create an updated credit card course that better aligned with the company’s relationship-building strategy.
Program Details
The new course reflects USAA’s approach to building member relationships, and:
- Includes a hands-on simulation
- Provides a similar look and feel throughout the entire training
- Teaches learners how to identify the right credit card to fit the member’s needs through added simulations and facilitated evaluations
Additionally, the training solution uses a military base town as its e-learning background. This ensures that the member experience and lifestyle is front and center to the learners as USAA is a leading provider of financial planning, insurance, investments, and banking products to members of the U.S. military, veterans, and their families.
Results
By incorporating on-the-job performance support tools and USAA’s knowledge management system, the program was shortened by 15 days. Thus, employees spent less time memorizing and more time role-playing, practicing skills, and even more time taking live calls. This returned 15 days of labor productivity back to the business.
After evaluating four classes and following 30, 60, and 90 days of post-training performance data, USAA also noted a reduction in the number of calls to the help line and shortened average handle time. The new course also decreased USAA’s financial risk by meeting and documenting new regulations.
Through this training course, representatives fulfill USAA’s mission by maintaining or improving members’ financial security. Forrester and Satmetrix recognized the bank’s efforts for customer service:
- In its 2017 U.S. Customer Experience Index, Forrester named USAA a “Best-in-Class” brand and ranked it first in four categories: Direct Banks, Direct or Discount Brokerage Firms, Credit Card Providers, and Auto or Home Insurance Providers.
- USAA ranked No. 1 for insurance and credit card in the Temkin Experience Ratings for 2016.
