Conference 7.286::dcu

[Words in uppercase letters are underlined in the original.  Any typos are 
 mine.  -NE]


Dear Digital Credit Union Member:

Please allow me to introduce myself.  I am Charles Cockburn, the new President
of Digital Employees' Federal Credit Union - YOUR CREDIT UNION.
					     
My primary goals for the year ahead will be twofold.  First, to lead your credit
union with the highest PERSONAL STANDARDS OF INTEGRITY, restoring the confidence
of members in our cooperative financial institution and, second, to focus on
the QUALITY OF SERVICE we at the credit union provide to you, our member.

We will, of course, continue to keep you informed as to the recent problems with
our past president as they affect the credit union.

I'd like to ask your help.  I'd like to ask for a little of your time to tell me
about yourself, about the financial services you use here and elsewhere, and how
you rate Digital Employees' Federal Credit Union.

We've selected a small percentage of our more than 88,000 members to receive a
survey questionnaire.  You are among those who were selected to be a part of
this important project.  You can help me get a much clearer picture of our
membership, its needs, expectations and view of this credit union.  By getting
your input, I can maintain the things members like while instituting changes to
correct the things they don't like.

I'll be sending the questionnaire to you in the next few days, so please watch
your mail for it.

  [This part is in italics and outlined with a box. -NE]

   I promise your answers are anonymous and confidential and will be
   studied only in combination with the answers of other respondents.
   The combined responses will help us review our operations and plan
   for the future.  Once the report has been prepared, all questionnaires
   will be destroyed and recycled.

Please watch for the survey questionnaire coming in the next few days.  Thank
you in advance for your time and assistance.

Sincerely,

[signature - mass-produced type]

Charles Cockburn
President/CEO

 

    
    Why didn't DCU send the questionaire with the letter???  Wonder how
    much this seperate mailing cost us?  I think he said 5,000 of these
    were going out.  Gee, wonder if I was randomly selected? 
    

    Re .-1
    
    Phil please...
    
    There is absolutely no need at all to suspect everything the DCU does.
    I personally look at this as a very positive step by Chuck Cockburn.
    Note that he acknowledges that the members own the credit union. Note
    that he refers to past mistakes. Sure he only names the president as
    having any responsibility for those mistakes and not the directors.
    But let's be realistic it would be totally unprofessional for him to
    say anything else.
    
    Yes I know Chuck has been less than direct with members when questioned
    about the past performance of the DCU. He is reasonably taking the
    position that it is none of his business. He wants to concentrate on
    improving the credit union for the future. To be honest I have a
    sneaking suspicion that he'd probably be quite happy to see the current
    board go. Clean slate and all that. Think of the good PR he could get
    in a few years time and how good it would be for his resume. Something
    like:
    
    	"In 1991 after massive fraud at the DCU by its president Richard
         Mangone looked over by a board of directors asleep at the wheel
         a new president Chuck Cockburn took over. At the same time the
         membership cleaned out the old board. Over the last few years
         with an extremely professional and competent president and a
         board of directors that actually communicates with its members
         and understands their wishes DCU's operating profits have
         continuously climbed. A large proportion of those operating
         profits have been returned to members as special dividends.
         Members are beginning to liken the DCU to how the DCU was back
         in the early 80s."
    
    Remember our major beef is with the board of directors. I have only
    minor issues with Chuck Cockburn which I am willing to dismiss because
    he is making himself visible, articulating policy changes and seems
    to have somewhat of a vision of where he'd like the DCU to go. I'd
    like to believe that his unwillingness to communicate on some issues
    is not of his own doing but due to some unknown action by the current
    BOD. We can't know for sure until the current board is gone. Roll on
    Tuesday.
    
    Dave
    

    Re: .-1
    
    I think we can do without this speculation.  With all the other stuff
    going on, this is a trivial issue at worst.

    Re .4
    
    Looks like notes clash I presume .4 is referring to .2.
    
    Dave

    Yeah.  Notes clash.  And no reasonable way to sort it out now.

    Hey, good for Chuck!  As near as I can tell, this is one thing *I* would do
    if I were the DCU prez.  He has apparently recognized that there is a need 
    to find out from members what type of services they want and use.  I
    like it!
    
    Steve

    Response to questionnaires can be significantly improved if preceded by
    an "early warning" letter.  The improved accuracy due to a better
    response can justify the cost of an additional mailing.
    
    I'm not saying that this was the reason in this case, but this approach
    is not uncommon with mail surveys.
    
    Rich
    

    
    RE: early replies
    
    All I'm saying is that DCU did in 2 mailings what it could have done in
    1 mailing.  After they just made an issue of the special meeting
    costing $35,000, they went and wasted money oan extra mailing.  Why
    would anybody need an "early warning letter" for a survey?  They could
    have sent out twice as many surveys instead of half early warnings,
    half surveys.  Sorry, but this still doesn't make too much sense to
    me.  Did it say if these would also be available at the branches?
    

If the survey is being managed by an outside firm then they may be doing
the actual mailing and collecting of the form itself. This is not an
unusual occurrence.

.9>                  After they just made an issue of the special meeting
.9>      costing $35,000, they went and wasted money oan extra mailing.


I (yes, me, that toss-out-the-old-management "dissident") have to join Chuck's
defenders here.  Unless we want to micro-manage, the details of how a survey
is conducted are the province of DCU staff.  The early-warning letter is one
standard technique to make the survey mailing itself count for something.
Even the US Census uses it.

  (Phil has a point that the the whining over the costs of the Special
   Meeting represents an inconsistency.  But it's the BoD who are doing
   the whining in that case.  And so what?)


  (If there's an inconsistency, it's because it was their conduct which
   caused the Special Meeting to be called.)

It will be interesting to hear what questions appear on the survey.  Free
checking, anyone?

    
    I agree.  Let's not pick on *every* nit there is.  If this
    survey could have been handled better, then they can improve
    with the next round.  All we need do is encourage them to adopt
    the continuous improvement philosophy.
    
    Steve
    
    
    

�Did it say if these would also be available at the branches?
    
    If it was, it would not be a random sample.
    
�After they just made an issue of the special meeting
�    costing $35,000, they went and wasted money oan extra mailing.  
    
    Others have already discussed the practice of an early warning.  The
    DCU is probably looking at the survey as a necessary cost of business
    or providing added value (afterall, we do want better communication
    don't we).  Whether justified or not, DCU probably doesn't feel the
    Special Meeting is value added.

    Nina (or anyone else who gets the survey), would you consider
    reproducing the survey here once you receive it?
    
    Thanks  Don

    I've already dismissed the complaints about mailing costs for the
    Special Meeting as a red herring.  $35,000 is noise compared to the
    issues of the Special Meeting.  
    
    It's really a symptom of why the contention has gotten so bad.  The
    Board has found that releasing a little information and cooperating 
    a little only serves to make matters worse.  They don't want to release
    any more information or cooperate any more than they have to, figuring
    that it will only make things worse.  It's probably not a wise
    conclusion.
    
    Shareholders, on the other hand. have found that information they've
    gotten from the Board was sometimes misleading or caused them to
    suspect the intentions of the Board.  They are now suspect of the
    intentions of any communications from the Board are are intentionally
    looking for intent to mislead.  This is also probably not a wise
    conclusion.
    
    So, both sides have probably reached unwise conclusions that result in
    breakdown in communication.  Either the Board has to release more
    information and suffer the scrutiny of the shareholders.  Or, the
    shareholders have to decide to simply place trust in the Board and stop
    being suspect of Board communications.  Then, the conflict will be
    over.
    
    This will be decided at the Special Meeting if that meeting is
    successful.  Personally, I don't feel comfortable with the idea of
    switching to "blind faith" mode in the Board, even though that appears
    to be the easy road to take.
    
    Steve 

    
    Sorry, since I've never received one of these surveys, I wasn't aware
    of the fact that there are usually two parts to them.  Here's an idea. 
    How about a DCU survey that is sent to all DCU members with their
    statement?  Similar to the Network Brochure we recently received but
    the last page (double sided) would tear away and be returned (folded
    into an envelop size).  One side woulf be questions, the other side
    would the mailing address, etc.  So you get a wide sample, less
    distribution cost, and less material cost.
    
    I still have DCU's 1989 survey results.  It'll be interesting to see
    what the questions and results of this one are.  In 1989, free checking
    was in the top 3 items of why people did business with DCU.

    To survey 88,000 people would be quite a task.  That is the reason why
    sampling plans are very important.

    I was wondering if any of the longer term DCU members got the survey or
    was it aimed more at the newer members?
    
    Joe

    
    I also wonder if the survey takes into consideration DCU members that
    are MANY miles from a branch office?  They have different needs and
    probably couldn't tell what the service at a branch is like.  It'll be
    interesting to hear the questions and how they selected the sample.
    

   I received my survey yesterday.  It's 8 sides of a page, too long for me
   to  type  in,  but if somebody would like to, send me mail and I'll send
   you a copy.

   There are  a lot of questions like what services do you use, what branch
   do you use, what other banks do you use and why, etc.

   The first two questions are interesting (text between *'s is underlined):

   Are you  presently  satisfied  that Digital Credit Union is *keeping you
   adequately  informed*  about  the  past  fraud situation? (Y/N/what more
   should we do)

   Are you  presently  satisfied  tha  tDigital Credit Union is *taking the
   appropriate  actions* regarding the past fraud situation? (Y/N/what more
   should we do)

I received my survey on Saturday (Paul, how did you get yours on a Sunday? :-)),
and I don't have time to type it all in, either.

Above the first two questions that Paul reproduced in .20 is this statement:

"Our first questions are related to the recent fraud committed against Digital
Credit Union by the former President."  I don't see the word "alleged" in
there... :-)  (that's in relation to a comment that came up when Chuck 
Cockburn visited ZKO last week.)

RE .10 --

> If the survey is being managed by an outside firm then they may be doing
> the actual mailing and collecting of the form itself. 

This appears to be the case.  The place we're to send it back to is called
MEMBERTRENDS and is located in Scottsdale, Arizona.

							-- Nina

P.S. RE .14 --

>    I was wondering if any of the longer term DCU members got the survey or
>    was it aimed more at the newer members?

How do you define "longer term" and "newer"?  And why would it matter?  FWIW,
I've had a DCU account since they opened an office at ZKO, although I can't 
remember what year that was (because it was so long ago :-) ).

Re: .28

Oops! Logical yesterday was Saturday! 8*)

    RE:.21

> P.S. RE .14 --

> >    I was wondering if any of the longer term DCU members got the survey or
> >    was it aimed more at the newer members?

> How do you define "longer term" and "newer"?  And why would it matter?  FWIW,
> I've had a DCU account since they opened an office at ZKO, although I can't 
> remember what year that was (because it was so long ago :-) ).

    By newer members I meant new hire to a couple of years as apposed to
    longer term members.  The newer person might not have had a long enough
    period of time to get this information or find where this information is 
    available yet.  Myself I've been a member sense DCU was formed and like
    a lot of people I don't read most of the trash they send or anyone sends 
    with statements and didn't find out what was going on until somebody told 
    me.  Ya I know I should check these things a little closer but I don't
    and they slipped this one by me.

    Joe

I received a survey and I've been a DCU member for 10 years.

Bruce

    I also received a survey, I've been with DCU for 10 years and I live in
    Utah....that's about as far away from the rest of the world that you
    can get!!
    
    Yvonne
    

    
    I received the survey and have been a member for almost 9 years.
    
    Steve
    

    re .14 (My request for someone to reproduce the survey here.)
    
    I just saw a copy of the survey, so those of you who received it,
    I'll understand if you don't want to take the time to capture the
    survey here!  IT'S 8 PAGES LONG!!!
    
    But, if there is someone out there who has nothing better to do,
    feel free to enter it here.  8-)
    
    Don

Last week I received the latest DCU survey.  After reading all the games that
were played in previous surveys under the leadership of Chuck Cockburn, I wasn't
quite sure what to expect.

I was pleasantly surprised.

This looks like a survey that Phil Gransewicz and Chris Gillett have spoken
about in the past.  It asks how important a long list of services are to you,
and how you think DCU does on the same list.  It asks where you have your
business for things like checking, savings, money market, CDs, car loans,
mortgage loans, home equity loans.  It even lists things DCU doesn't do, like
stock services and mutual funds.

I was happy to fill this one out (the first I've ever gotten, and I've been a
member for over 12 years), because I feel I'm contributing real data to real
decision making.

I hope we will see the results made public in a meaningful way (even if all the
news is not good for DCU).

Elaine

I wonder how one "gets on the list for this". I'd be glad to participate.

-Jack