St. Petersburg, FL, Oct. 26, 2011 – Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union of St. Paul, Minn., recently dropped 30-year fixed mortgage rates to 4% and emailed that offer to 70,000 members. The campaign generated an impressive 14% response rate with 11,000 members contacting Affinity Plus for additional information, which overwhelmed their staff and their Call Center. They relied upon PSCU Financial Services’ Total Member Care™ representatives to help ensure their members inquiries were answered in a timely manner and to help make the promotion a success.

Affinity Plus has experienced rapid growth due to its ability to build relationships with members based on trust—and its personal service delivered through multiple channels, including in-branch, phone and over the Internet. Affinity Plus’ membership has grown to a total of 140,000 members, and they will soon have 27 branches in Minnesota.

This dramatic expansion in membership took place under the leadership of Keith Malbrue, Affinity’s Chief Information Officer. Malbrue was recently named as “CIO of the Year” by the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal, which recognized him because of his success in increasing the credit union’s efficiencies and revenue, along with his strong leadership skills.

Affinity’s goal was to provide each and every one of their employees with the tools needed to help answer questions from their members. This led Malbrue to seek out solutions that would help Affinity deliver on its promise of putting “members first.”

This philosophy drove the credit union’s successful growth, but also created a dramatic increase in Call Center volumes, which was difficult from a staffing perspective. Five years ago Affinity received 10,000-15,000 calls a month, whereas they now receive 100,000 calls a month. Despite the high volume of calls, Affinity is able to continue to provide outstanding 24/7/365 member support, thanks to its partnership with Total Member Care from PSCU Financial Services.

“Our relationship with our members is built on trust, so we are very cautious about having anyone except our staff interact with our members. However, we have found Total Member Care to be an invaluable resource,” said Malbrue. “Their experienced professionals handle inquiries just as our staff would and act as an extension of our credit union. Their help has been invaluable not only to handling special promotions like our recent outbound campaign, but also to providing daytime overflow backup, after-hours 24/7/365 support and taking calls during snow storms, floods and other natural disasters.”

Malbrue added that the credit union’s staff members are committed to handling as many calls as possible, but it’s difficult to provide around-the-clock support. “Our members need to know that we’re available whenever they need us. Total Member Care helps us do that by delivering superior member service when our members need it most.”

More than 270 credit unions use Total Member Care’s Contact Centers, which deliver a holistic and comprehensive approach to member support. In addition to handling inquiries on a variety of financial services, the cooperative’s Contact Centers help credit unions communicate effectively with members about mergers, data processing and home banking conversions, and regulatory changes. All services are available 24/7/365 to ensure maximum member satisfaction and loyalty.

About PSCU Financial Services

Based in St. Petersburg, Florida, PSCU Financial Services is the nation's largest credit union service organization (CUSO) and serves more than 1,500 financial institutions nationwide. As a non-profit cooperative, the company is owned by more than 680 member credit unions representing 16 million credit, debit, prepaid, electronic banking and online bill payment accounts. Its Contact Centers handle more than 18 million inquiries a year.

PSCU Financial Services offers 24/7 member support through four Contact Centers: its Eastern operations center in St. Petersburg, Fla.; a Western operations center based in Phoenix, Ariz.; and two call centers in Detroit, Mich. These Contact Centers perform member servicing and new member acquisition, cross-selling and automated lending solutions as well as support for debit/credit/prepaid cardholders, electronic banking and online bill payment subscribers.

Established in 1977, the company provides a broad array of cost-effective, high quality financial services that include credit, debit, ATM, prepaid, bill payment, electronic banking and contact center solutions. PSCU Financial Services uniquely offers its members a full range of processing options, any combination from full service to in-house pass through processing for credit, debit and ATM transactions. As a leader in the credit union movement, the company offers gateway access to national and regional networks. It also provides full function ATM terminal driving services. For more information, visit PSCU Financial Services’ website at www.pscufs.com.