When thank you feels unnatural, it shows we have an opportunity to bring meaning back to our member conversations.
I don’t believe in scripts as a way to train a skill or teach someone how to speak to members. I do believe in structuring the purpose behind the conversation though.
Over the past couple of weeks, while working on this structure with the frontline around account opening, something started to show.
It is very simple. We have been roleplaying the first two to five minutes of the interaction over and over again. Greeting. Introduction. Then thanking the member. With just a little more after that. But to my surprise, everyone struggled with the thank you.
I even had a team member say, “I know we should be doing this, but I don’t know why it is so hard.”
This caught me off guard.
I believe we should show appreciation to a member for coming into our credit union and giving us the opportunity to be their financial partner. Because of that, we should thank them.
“Thank you for choosing Illinois State Credit Union and allowing us the opportunity to be your financial partner.”
Everyone can make that sentence their own.
But watching how unnatural it felt for people to simply say thank you was eye opening. It almost felt foreign. It felt like thank you had become a passing gesture with no meaning behind it.
And that is what surprised me the most. We say thank you all the time. At the end of transactions, in passing, as habit. But when we slow it down, look someone in the eye, and intentionally say it with meaning, it becomes difficult.
Why?
People want to feel appreciated. They want to feel valued. We value every single member. But when it comes to expressing that verbally through a simple thank you, it suddenly becomes uncomfortable.
That surprised me. It also reassured me that we are working on the right things.
If something as simple as thank you feels unnatural, then we have an opportunity. An opportunity to be more intentional. An opportunity to bring meaning back to words we use every day.
Thank you is underused. And when it is used, it is often undervalued in the delivery.
I am excited to see value brought back to those two powerful words inside our credit union.