CU*Answers has recently announced that any of its clients are able to attend the Passageways powWOW, an Advanced User and Development Conference being held May 12th - May 13th, at a special rate of $200, which is $150 less than the standard registration rate.
CU*Answers provides Talent Source Portals via the Passageways P4 Portal solution, which allows credit unions to organize and structure the collective knowledge of its teams into discrete workgroups of information. This tool centralizes collaborative communication to increase productivity among staff as it makes needed information easily accessible. This information is hosted in CU*Answers SAS-70 certified datacenter and managed by WESCO Net professionals, eliminating worry about hardware or system security.
CU*Answers and Passageways have extended the discount rate to all CU*BASE clients, whether they are already Portal users, or interested in more information about the solution.
For more information, access: www.passageways.com/powwow_conference.php
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Mar 10, 2010 at 9:01 am by admin
Posted in News |
Xtend, Inc., a Grand Rapids, Michigan-based multi-owned cooperative CUSO, announced earlier this week that it has selected LIVECHAT Contact Center from European developer LIVECHAT Software for an upcoming web chat proof-of-concept project. During the selection process, Xtend evaluated several in-house and ASP chat solutions before deciding to move forward with the LIVECHAT enterprise solution. The CUSO plans to quickly deploy the LIVECHAT application to support its B2B service offerings, while at the same time working with its core data processing partner – CU*Answers – over the next several months to integrate LIVECHAT into an authenticated It’s Me 247 home banking B2C solution.
According to Xtend President Scott Collins, selecting the right partner proved more challenging than expected. “We have been providing B2B chat services for nearly a year, but we knew that providing B2C support, especially in an authenticated and secure environment like home banking, required us to buy versus build. From the onset, we preferred an enterprise solution because we felt we had more control, but most of the recognized industry players were an ASP deployment. In fact, when we first looked at LIVECHAT it did not have an enterprise solution either. By the time we re-engaged with them this fall their enterprise solution was already deployed in several European financial institutions. Over the next few months, our web services and home banking partners over at CU*Answers will put the LIVECHAT software and support team to the test so that we can move forward with confidence.”
Collins noted that several credit union clients were anxious to participate in the beta testing of the new web chat service and that the CUSO planned to be ready for this next by late winter or early spring.
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WESCO Net Web Services, a leader in web design and hosting, has integrated the popular CEO Ticklers email newsletter with cuanswers.com.
In March 2008, parent company CU*Answers launched the CEO Tickler program with the objective of challenging CEOs to set some goals for running their credit union business, while gaining insights into their membership base. Each tickler newsletter includes challenges that are answered in a corresponding CEO Tickler Answers newsletter.
Topics for the 2009 year included Dashboards – Keep Your Eyes on the Road Ahead, which focused on utilizing CU*BASE dashboards to gauge the effectiveness of programs that drive credit unions forward, Strategic Online Banking Tactics, and Goals for Product & Services 2010.
This resource became so worthwhile that credit union staffers wanted the ability to reference the information outside of their email client. The team at WESCO Net Web Services stepped in, and now these email newsletters are also published as part of cuanswers.com.
Visit online at http://cuanswers.com/ceo_ticklers/
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WESCO Net Web Services, a leader in web design and hosting for the Credit Union Industry has launched more than 60 websites in the last 12 months.
This impressive count includes many different credit union sites, MicroLender Pay Day Loan origination sites, Retailer Direct origination sites, Prime Alliance Mortgage origination sites, custom Risk Management Report Generators and cuasterisk.com corporate sites.
According to WESCO Net, this is a record year for the Web Services department, with the most new development it has ever done. The launch of these new sites is in addition to the regular website updates requested by its clients.
David Damstra, Manager of Web Service says, “This has been an exciting year for us, not only have we been able to launch more web sites than we ever have before, but we’ve also been able to expand our services into innovative web applications and the new Talent Source portals. We look forward to next year being even bigger.”
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WESCO Net Web Services, in association with CU*Answers Audit Link, recently deployed two instances of its custom-built Risk Management Report Generator web site applications.
The Risk Management Report Generator is a tool which allows clients of the CU*Answers network (cuasterisk.com) to complete their due diligence on services and products purchased from these CUSOs. The creation of the product stemmed from requirements set forth by the NCUA instruction to credit unions to perform due diligence on vendor relationships. In addition to storing answers modeled after the questions posed by the NCUA, is also allows credit unions to keep vital contract information along with legal opinions associated with the correlating contracts. This application is a collaborative effort for a community of clients to establish responses to the questions, and these responses are available to others to use or model their own responses after.
In addition to the pilot site built for CU*Answers, the Web Services team also deployed a similar version for eDOC Innovations.
Jim Vilker, VP Professional Services for CU*Answers describes it as a “full vendor management system for credit unions that partner with the cuasterisk.com network. It allows credit unions to not only complete their due diligence electronically, but to also view how their peers completed the assessment.”
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Xtend, Inc., a multi-owned cooperative CUSO headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan, announced that it has begun to take orders for the new CU*OverDrive marketing service which was announced this past summer. The CU*OverDrive brand is a collaborative effort that combines marketing, consulting, web services, programming, and direct member support from multiple business units of Xtend and fellow CUSO CU*Answers, Inc. Xtend’s Member Reach and Xtension Call Center business units will spearhead the delivery efforts from an Xtend standpoint while working closely with the Management Services and Web Services business units at CU*Answers.
According to Xtend President Scott Collins, “The goal of CU*OverDrive is to provide a comprehensive annual ‘marketing plan in a can’ for our credit union partners that leverages the resources we have within our two CUSOs. We worked with a focus group of our credit union partners to develop twelve monthly campaigns covering product and services sets that include multiple lending products, savings/thrift, new member marketing, identity security, and general member awareness topics. We think this serves as a perfect complement to our partners’ current marketing plan because it fills in the gaps around their existing marketing plans. It keeps the momentum going for the entire year and frees up their staff to focus on the big projects.”
Campaigns will include consulting, core system configuration, artwork and web content, collaborative printing pricing, and electronic communications along with an option to activate inbound/outbound call center support from the Xtension Call Center. Collins reports that in just the first week, nine credit unions have signed up to include CU*OverDrive in their 2010 marketing plans.
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