"ECCU is the banking resource for churches, Christian schools, and other evangelical ministries nationwide. It also serves missionaries in more than 100 countries around the world. Pivotal CRM’s ability to manage and model these relationships helped put it ahead of other systems under consideration. Also, many of the other systems ECCU considered were very consumer focused; Pivotal CRM better supported the commercial orientation of the credit union, along with the complex individual member relationships."

1. Evangelical Christian Credit Union
ECCU uses Pivotal CRM to get a 360-degree view and build
strong relationships.
Customer Details
Evangelical Christian Credit Union
• Member-owned financial cooperative for growing churches, Christian schools, and other
evangelical ministries.
www.eccu.org
Industry
• Financial Services
Challenges
• Organization grew to a size that required new technology support
• CRM solution had to be flexible enough to model complex credit union business workflows
Benefits
• Secured 100% user adoption
• Improved pipeline management and forecasting
• Mobile users have access to rich member information
Solution
CDC Pivotal CRM
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2. Most businesses have corporate goals and mission build its customer relationships. Accordingly, its
statements. But Brea, California–based Evangelical technology team began to evaluate CRM systems.
Christian Credit Union (ECCU) has a mission of a
higher order. A distinct challenge for ECCU in finding the right CRM
system was the degree of relationship complexity
ECCU is the banking resource for churches, with which the credit union routinely deals. Due to its
Christian schools, and other evangelical ministries ministry banking focus, a large number of ECCU’s
nationwide. It also serves missionaries in more than customers are organizations, rather than individuals,
100 countries around the world. While its business but many of its individual members are part of one or
focus is providing financial services to evangelical more of these organizations. The organizations are
organizations, the credit union does provide personal also often linked, such as a church with an associated
banking services such as savings and checking school and ties to one or more mission agencies.
accounts to individual members and their families. These complex, multi-layered interconnections made
For more than 40 years, seemingly simple tasks, such as assembling and
ECCU’s members and
It’s a one-stop employees have shared a
addressing a list of Christmas cards, a formidable
challenge.
shop. Users don’t commitment to the mission
of making evangelical This tangled web of relationships was more than
have to open Christian ministries more most of the CRM systems the ECCU team evaluated
two or three effective. could handle. Pivotal CRM’s ability to manage and
model these relationships helped put it ahead of
applications to Growing Business other systems under consideration. Also, many of
find what they Brings Growing the other systems ECCU considered were very
Needs consumer focused; Pivotal CRM better supported the
want. It’s all there ECCU began operations commercial orientation of the credit union, along with
in Pivotal CRM. as the Conservative Baptist the complex individual member relationships.
Credit Union of Southern
Judy Dietz California, merging with the Another key differentiator for Pivotal CRM was its
ECCU, Pivotal Application
Manager Association of Christian flexibility. The team saw that wherever Pivotal CRM
Schools International Credit didn’t fit all of the credit union’s needs out of the box,
Union in 1984 and broadening its field of membership it could be customized to do so. The ECCU team
to become ECCU. Since that time, it has continued to selected Pivotal CRM for its implementation and set
grow at a rapid pace, today employing approximately about making these customizations, implementing the
300 people and representing nearly $3 billion in total system in 2003.
assets under management.
Customized—But Not Standardized
Despite this growth, ECCU has held true to its faith- Unfortunately, ECCU found that customization in and
and community-based roots, delivering a relationship- of itself was not necessarily a virtue. The initial CRM
based banking experience to its members. Several implementation focused on the sales force, and the
years ago, however, the credit union began to project team was eager to adapt the system to meet
recognize that maintaining this kind of personal and the salespeople’s needs and processes, building in
valued relationship with members was becoming customizations to meet a wide variety of demands.
more challenging as it expanded. No longer a small Over time, however, it became apparent that the
business where employees and customers all knew processes being customized into the system were
each other by name, ECCU understood that it needed not truly standardized or mature, which led to usage
centralized technologies in place to help track and problems.
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3. By 2007, ECCU was at a crossroads. With further commitment to the project, understanding that to
growth and increasing competition, the credit union derive full value from the system, they would need
needed a centralized customer view and technology- more significant top-down support as well as more
supported sales process more than ever, but it knew direct management usage of the system. Secondly,
that further customizing its heavily customized but they took a different approach to customization,
underused system was not going to fix its problems. requiring strong business rationale before they would
ECCU also needed a solution that would better modify the system to accommodate a given field,
support its mobile sales force and wanted to move to form, or process.
a web-based CRM client.
The project team was aided in this by internal
A Pivotal Move developments at ECCU. The credit union’s sales
As ECCU evaluated its force, which had formerly been composed of separate
options, it found that teams for depository and lending sales, was in the
Many of the Pivotal CRM was still process of merging into a single group. Furthermore,
customizations the best choice on the the credit union had made major advances in process
market for its needs. In the standardization, such that a mature, consistent, and
we made in our years since ECCU’s initial proven process could be modeled in the system with
initial deployment deployment, CDC Software confidence.
had launched Pivotal CRM
were available out- for Financial Services, an The more selective use of customization was made
much easier by the industry-tailored features available
of-the-box with industry-tailored version of
in Pivotal CRM for Commercial Banking. “We were
Pivotal CRM with specific
Pivotal CRM for suites for a range of lines able to significantly leverage simple configuration of
out-of-the-box functionality,” notes Scott Thomas,
Financial Services. of business within financial
ECCU’s Manager of Systems Development. “Where
services. ECCU found
Alan Weisenberger that the Pivotal CRM for we did customization, we were customizing the
ECCU, VP, Technology Commercial Banking suite artifacts—the documents and the reports that already
Services
closely matched its needs existed in the out-of-the-box system. We were really
right out of the box, while letting the out-of-the-box tailored solution work the
still providing the flexibility to easily customize the way it was intended to.”
system where needed. “Many of the customizations
As the project team moved toward implementation,
we made in our initial deployment were available out
they identified user adoption as the most important
of the box with Pivotal CRM for Financial Services,”
measurement of success. “If everyone in the sales
notes Alan Weisenberger, ECCU’s VP of Technology
organization is using the system to manage their
Services. “It was already a close fit to how we do
pipeline and sales process, if there are no other
business.” Pivotal CRM’s Rich Client offering also
ancillary systems in use, if management and
better suited the credit union’s long-term technology
salespeople alike look to the system as their source of
plans and offered web-based access to CRM data for
information about our relationship with the customer,
mobile employees.
that’s success,” says Weisenberger.
In July 2007, ECCU implemented Pivotal CRM for
Increasing Member Insight
Commercial Banking. This time, it took an entirely
At the heart of it all, of course, is the comprehensive
different approach to system implementation. First,
client-member view that Pivotal CRM makes possible.
before beginning the project, the project team
Users now have a single, centralized source of rich
secured a more intense executive and management
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4. information about a member and interactions with “This has been a landmark project. To have a
them that is fast and easy to access. “It’s a one-stop migration project of this magnitude come off this
shop,” says Dietz. “They don’t have to open two or smoothly sets a new high-water mark in my 25 years
three applications to find what they want. It’s all there of technology management,” says Weisenberger. “It
in Pivotal CRM.” went so well; the team just connected and worked
together wonderfully. The Pivotal CRM team brought
Having a single, reliable system of record for member a lot to the table in terms of expertise, and they
information may seem simple, but its value should not brought a lot of discipline into the project process—
be overlooked. Before ECCU implemented Pivotal along with flexibility where it needed to flex. I can’t
CRM, outdated information once sent the credit think of a project team I’d rather work with than the
union’s CEO to the wrong address when visiting an folks that we worked with from Pivotal CRM. My
important member—something that did not please the team and I commented several times throughout
member, the CEO, or ECCU staff. When it comes to implementation that we were concerned only because
member information, having a system with thorough, we didn’t seem to have anything to be concerned
current, reliable information is essential to building about!”
trust.
Thomas adds, “Everyone took a great deal of effort
Another great benefit of the system is the ability to and pride in understanding the business we do and
understand a member’s sphere of influence. “It’s why the things we wanted to see in the system were
not unusual for Pastor Joe to be on the board of a important to us. It was extremely valuable. And this
Christian school or teach at a Christian university and went all the way up to CDC Software’s executive
be on the board of another mission agency,” notes management, who were very receptive and very
Weisenberger. “Our users need to know this, so that willing to work with us to make the system more
when they’re having a conversation with Pastor Joe productive for us.”
in one context, they understand the broader context
Dietz agrees: “The people we have worked with have
of his involvement.” Pivotal CRM’s intuitive visual
provided a perfect combination of understanding what
relationship trees make this sphere of influence easy
we need and advising us when there are better ways
to understand at a glance.
to do things. CDC Software is what we’re looking for
Daily imports of account data from ECCU’s back- in a vendor: a true partner.”
end financial system keep account information
fresh and ensure the Pivotal CRM system is a truly Looking to the Future
comprehensive source of member data. In addition, ECCU has projects underway to provide system
the system’s ability to track internal and external enhancements for its users and expand CRM usage
account data to understand share of wallet holds to its member services group, ensuring users across
promise for ECCU as they look for new opportunities departments and functions are fully aware of each
to expand their business and deepen their other’s interactions with members and can present an
relationships with existing members. informed, seamless member experience. The credit
union is also bringing its lead nurturing process into
A Winning Partnership the system and plans to roll Pivotal CRM out to its
ECCU has worked with the Pivotal CRM Professional marketing department, which can’t wait to start using
Services team throughout this implementation, and the system. ECCU also looks forward to taking full
the cooperation between the two companies’ teams advantage of the 360-degree client view it now has,
has been a major factor in the project’s success. seeing the potential to better analyze and segment
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5. its member base to provide more personalized and As Weisenberger sees it, it’s retention in particular
differentiated member experiences and deepen that is the true test for the credit union. “At a mom-
relationships through cross-selling. and-pop shop, you personally know everybody by
name and you can keep a good, tight relationship
While steps remain in ECCU’s journey to realizing its
with them,” he says. “But when you’re bigger and
full CRM vision, Weisenberger ultimately sees Pivotal
your customers are organizations, you don’t just
CRM as a vital part of the credit union’s future growth.
have a person-to-person relationship—it’s much
“If you’re not growing, you’re dying,” he says. “Our
more complex. So how do you create deep loyalty,
competition is growing and getting more competitive.
deep roots, a deep relationship unless there is some
And I don’t think our business model is sustainable
consistency? We’re using Pivotal CRM to create
at the level we’re operating at without Pivotal CRM.
that consistency and to go beyond person-to-person
Without Pivotal CRM, we’d be very constrained
loyalty to achieve organization-to-organization loyalty.”
in our ability to acquire and retain our customer
Creating this loyalty helps ECCU pursue their mission
relationships.”
of making ministries more effective, and Pivotal CRM
is helping them achieve it.
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