KIA SPOTLIGHT

Keeping the Human Connection at the Center of CX

Inside 3Rivers Federal Credit Union’s approach to empowering employees, testing new ideas, and turning member insights into better experiences.

by Execs In The Know

At 3Rivers Federal Credit Union, exceptional member experience is about more than delivering convenient service. It means building teams that understand members’ needs, removing friction from everyday interactions, and making thoughtful investments that improve the experience across every channel. As Chief Member Experience Officer, Peter McMahon brings that perspective to decisions spanning branch operations, contact center support, digital tools, and the broader member journey, with a focus on continuous improvement and long-term member relationships.

In this KIA Spotlight, McMahon shares how 3Rivers puts that philosophy into practice, from empowering employees to identify opportunities for improvement to testing new ideas before expanding them across the organization. He also discusses how the credit union evaluates technology and AI without losing sight of the human connection at the heart of financial services, and how CX leaders can use member feedback, measurable outcomes, and cross-functional alignment to guide decisions that benefit both members and the business.

Execs In The Know (EITK): Can you tell us about your role as Chief Member Experience Officer at 3Rivers Federal Credit Union? What areas of the member experience fall under your leadership, and what are your top priorities?

Peter: Ultimately, I support everything that can affect the member experience at 3Rivers. This includes supporting our branch leadership, contact center, business relationships, and youth/college support team. Our priority is to become the best financial institution in the country by building the best teams, providing the best service, and delivering continuous improvement. 3Rivers is one of the best-performing credit unions in the country and has been consistently recognized by Raddon with the annual Crystal Performance Award.

EITK: What does an exceptional member experience look like in financial services today? How does 3Rivers bring that vision to life across the different stages of the member journey?

Peter: Our goal is to provide an exceptional member experience across every channel: in person, in the contact center, or through our digital suite of tools. We have a high-touch service model. It starts with our team members and developing them to create memorable experiences with our members. Financial wellness is at the heart of what we do to serve our members.

We established the Now to Wow service initiative, which focuses on exceptional lobby engagement, empowering our teams, surprising and delighting our members, and identifying life-stage events to make a great impression when our members need it most. We created the Checking Account Concierge program to help make it easy for new members coming to 3Rivers to open an account and transfer their bill pay and direct deposit.

EITK: Financial services are built on trust, and members increasingly expect convenient, personalized experiences. How do you balance digital convenience with the human connection that remains so important in banking?

Peter: It’s important that we try to create exceptional experiences across every channel for consistency in the member experience. Our members expect excellence in the traditional channels and for us to stay on top of the latest technology and security. This way, they can enjoy the benefits of high tech without sacrificing the safety and security of their accounts.

We start with journey mapping to envision the end-to-end experience a member will have, and we partner only with digital vendors that improve the overall experience.

EITK: How do you connect member experience priorities to broader business goals? What helps you build the case for investing in CX when resources are limited and competing priorities continue to shift?

Peter: One of our business tenets is to be strategically different. On the 3Rivers Executive Team, we use this as a driving force in determining where to invest our resources. We review business cases and then decide based on capacity and what is best for our organization.

During my seven years with the organization, we have made major vendor decisions that have affected the member experience: we moved to the Alkami digital platform, we shifted from Genesys to TalkDesk for voice and Glia for chat, we moved to the Velera card platform, added a new bill pay and person-to-person payment option, and have enhanced our security with several vendors, including Biocatch, and MeridianLink. These vendors have improved the experience, and many have delivered significant savings compared to previous platforms.

EITK: Member expectations and financial needs are constantly evolving. How does your team identify emerging needs and turn member feedback into meaningful improvements?

Peter: Technology and member expectations are changing fast in the age of Agentic AI. We stay on top of the emerging trends by attending conferences, roundtable events with industry leaders, and vendor connections. We have a successful platform for encouraging team members to share ideas they have to improve the member experience. We call the internal program Share the Experience.

All employees can access the system and submit ideas that are on their minds and/or feedback they hear directly from our members. This helps us stay close to the needs of our members, and we average roughly 2 requests per week/100 per year. We have also established an Innovation Branch, where we run a series of tests to see what may resonate with our members.

If the test is successful in one branch, we will test it in another 3-4 locations. Once it succeeds in the test locations, we will roll it out across all 24 branches.

EITK: Delivering a consistent experience often requires alignment across multiple teams and functions. How do you bring people together around shared CX priorities and ensure the member experience remains central to decision-making?

Peter: It helps that my position is at the executive level, reporting directly to our CEO. This way, we run any decisions through the filter of member experience. We make it a priority to have at least one person from the member experience team on every organization-wide project to ensure that a voice from our team is represented. We take pride in solving for member friction points while trying to create seamless member journeys across our organization.

EITK: What role are technology and AI playing in the future of member experience at 3Rivers? How do you evaluate where these tools can create value while protecting member trust and preserving access to human support?

Peter: We consistently evaluate vendors to stay on top of emerging trends. In some cases, we will do a pilot where we try something in a smaller number of branches or for a limited amount of time. We will only add AI options that can improve the member experience.

It’s important for us to fully understand any AI solutions to ensure that anything we could implement doesn’t take us backward in the member experience. The human element is an important part of our service offering, so anything we do with AI should add value and not take away from the human connection we have in the branches, contact center, investment team, and mortgages.

EITK: How do you measure the impact of your CX initiatives? Which metrics or indicators help you understand whether you’re improving the experience for members and delivering meaningful results for the organization?

Peter: We use the Objective and Key Results (OKR) framework that author John Doerr describes in his book Measure What Matters. We set an objective and then define specific key results to measure whether it is working. We have established a proprietary Engagement Score which measures our members across a variety of factors to understand the depth of the relationship they have with us.

We also use Net Promoter Score (NPS), and we survey each member once a year, which provides a strong baseline and historical data points. Our NPS scores show a positive trend and continue to improve each year.

EITK: Looking back at your time leading customer or member experience, what is one lesson that has fundamentally shaped your leadership approach? How has that lesson influenced the way you build teams, set priorities, or navigate change?

Peter: I learned many of these lessons when I was on the Nordstrom leadership team. Each concept has translated to the financial services industry. The key concept is that everything starts with the customer (member), and you should try to see everything from their point of view. A best-in-class experience depends on reducing friction for the member while recognizing that members typically like to have choices.

EITK: As a member of the KIA Community, what value do you find in connecting with fellow CX leaders? How does having a trusted network of peers who understand the challenges of leading customer experience influence your thinking and approach?

Peter: It’s been a great experience being part of the KIA Community. I’ve enjoyed attending CRS and have made valuable connections. It’s reassuring to know other KIA members have been through similar situations and are happy to help when needed.