Ink on the Interview
Q: Can you share a quick overview of the session?
A: Absolutely. You use the perfect word, proactive. In the last couple of years, I think all, if not most, all credit unions across the board realize that looking at the current workflows, looking at the type of communication channels that they employ in the credit union to outreach to their members needed a little bit of modernization, right? And coordinating the communication and the step-by-step outreach has become absolutely key. And many credit unions are starting to learn a lot more about their membership, the demographics that they serve, and how to outreach into the community more. And collections is, while it is a reaction to the lending process, you have to first originate the loan before you fall into a delinquency queue, but that early notification is great to see, even just a couple of years ago. A lot of credit unions were waiting a significant amount of time just letting the member kind of have some space. And now it’s great to see using empathetic language, either through text or email or a number of different channels to reach out to members and there’s more engagement. 2025 has become a year that I think is different than what most people thought we were going to be walking into. There’s a lot of different change, and with change comes uncertainty. With uncertainty comes a little bit of trepidation of people moving forward. What is great to see in an environment like this is how many credit unions refuse to just stay status quo, but are looking to improve either their communication strategy, certainly their collection strategy, but at the end of the day. It’s how to serve their members best, and that mission never stops. That’s what makes this exciting.
Q: Can you share a couple of highlights on the panel that you facilitated, for those one or two people who didn’t make it here this time around?
A: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I’ll do the reverse order. I didn’t mention Kris Frantzen from Temenos. His opinion, certainly from the system side and what they’re building, is exciting to see that there’s still investment in a lot of companies to create new products, features that are handling solutions in the industry, and I don’t think that ever goes away. For sure. So it’s great to have his perspective. Jesus Garcia is the Chief Experience Officer at OceanAir, I think provides a holistic 360-degree view. It’s great having somebody like him at the helm, because he sees it from not just collections, but just a member experience part, right? And imparting some of those words of wisdom in a department like collections is important.
The most important word for any team in collections is empathy, and I think Jesus highlighted that pretty well. Xavier Carillo from Unify, who’s the vice president of collections there, my takeaway from him was he’s, I don’t want to say a risk taker, but he was a very early adopter in a lot of technologies. He was one of the first to go live with Akuvo. He was using Eltropy about five, six years ago before texting, really exploded on the scene. So what I took from him is just the courageous ability for him to put the business proposal for the adoption of technology, and is he grateful for it today. And Shannon Stewart, who heads up the collections unit at Southland Credit Union, I mean, if anybody knows Shannon, you know first, he’s a heck of a storyteller. Oh yeah, he’s a larger-than-life individual, for sure. He captures a room so easily, but it’s also how he boils down complex issues to their simplistic form, using his personal experience in collections. And the people at Southland Credit Union, I mean, I can’t imagine how more thrilled they are with Shannon. His part is, if there was anybody that personifies empathy in collections, it’s that man right there. So we’re grateful for all four of those guys for joining us.
Q: What was the big goal you wanted to achieve in your session? It sounds like you were really focused on moving from reactive to proactive, and using this really cool technology that people actually respond to.
A: The idea here is that Ashish calls it the Amazonification, the click, click, done environment that we’re in. Its ease of use is paramount. The idea behind the creation of Collections 2.0 is really not for credit unions to compete with each other, not even to necessarily compete with the national banks. It’s actually to kind of stem the bleeding towards payday lending. And that ease of use justifies, or at least explains, the proliferation of those organizations simply because of a growing number. There was a couple of panels earlier in the day that were talking about growing memberships and how that percentage is somewhat alarming. There’s an aging demographic within credit unions, so how are we pulling in the younger generations that are going to swell the ranks? And the answer is through technology. It’s those devices that we are addicted on, and the easier you can make the experience, the better it is. COVID was a super accelerant to a lot of technologies, certainly on the digital side, right? We all started using Zooms. QR codes made a huge comeback during that time. And the idea now is to put those technologies into the collections queue, communicate with the right type of language, allowing members to communicate in the channel of choice. And by doing so, you actually strengthen the relationship. So all of the credit unions that were in attendance are all at different levels of adoption of these technologies. So the best part about having a panel like this is that you had organizations that were at different stages of the implementation of these technologies and sharing their insights. Hopefully, what it did was turn other credit unions to either dip their toes into the pool or get in a little bit deeper with other technologies, not just Eltropy, but as the industry as a whole.
Q: Any takeaways or highlights for you from this conference?
A: Yeah, maybe not on a topic, but just so much appreciation. This is my first Emerge. I found my way through the acquisition of Lexop and to Eltropy. And so I’ve been an Eltropion for three and a half months now. And the biggest takeaway that I’m going to have is how warm our customers have been. And they do see us more as partners than a typical relationship. The key takeaway that I’ve had is I must have had about 40 to 50 different conversations over the last two days, some with collections, more importantly, about the people that we serve. And when you get to know somebody on that personal level, it just makes you want to work a little harder because you genuinely now are invested in the well-being of that person. And so these type of events, and there’s no shortage of conferences, you and I both know that we do a few, but there are these moments at some events where you just have these conversations and you’ve created a friend for life. And now if you can do work together, that is an added bonus in my opinion. So my key takeaway, like I do with many events, it’s the quality time that I get to spend that I normally wouldn’t have with individuals and when you’re entering the conversation with the idea of let’s collaborate, normally there’s some really great outcomes that come out of that. So that is going to be my biggest takeaway from Emerge and what I’m most grateful for.
Q: Speaking of networking and getting to know folks, there’s a lot of opportunities here to network as well.
A: Well, the networking is key because we jump into conference sessions starting at 8 o’clock in the morning. We grab our coffee. It starts shortly after. And we run right up until about 5, 6 o’clock. It’s a very long day. Not to mention, everybody’s still balancing all the work that they still have to do back home. Just because we’re here doesn’t mean everybody is off. So the balancing act over two, three days is incredibly intense which is where you kind of need to blow off a little bit of steam. And if there’s one thing that I think Eltropy is known for is the food, the dancing. You know, a lot of fun as well. Yeah, you guys work hard and play hard. So, yeah. It should be a memorable experience and hopefully that is exactly what everybody’s thinking walking away from home.
