**CPCU Has Forgotten the Members Who Built It**
I rarely write reviews this strongly, but after my family's recent experience with CPCU, I believe senior leadership needs to understand how badly the member experience has deteriorated.
My mother and father have trusted CPCU with their banking for more than **35 years**. They are exactly the type of long-term members who helped build this institution. Yet after what we experienced recently, I am now actively working with my father to move his banking elsewhere.
My father is **80 years old, a U.S. Navy Vietnam veteran, and is experiencing early-stage dementia**. He spends approximately six to seven months each year in California and recently lost his ATM/debit card. I joined him on the phone to help him obtain a replacement card while he is here.
What should have been a simple request became an unnecessarily frustrating process.
We waited approximately 7-10 minutes to reach customer service. We were told that before CPCU could mail him a card to his seasonal address, we first needed to go online or visit a branch to add that address.
Why couldn't the representative we were already speaking with assist an elderly, long-term member with that process?
After updating the address, we were then required to **call CPCU back, wait on hold again, and start the process over.**
During those hold times, CPCU repeatedly tells callers:
**"We value your call" and "Our goal is 100% member satisfaction."**
Unfortunately, repeating those words does not make them true.
When we finally reached the second representative and requested the replacement card, we were told standard delivery would take approximately **10-14 days -- and CPCU would charge my father $15 for it.**
When I asked whether the card could be sent sooner, we were told overnight delivery would cost approximately **$90.**
Think about that for a moment.
An 80-year-old Navy veteran who has banked with CPCU for decades, has lost access to his debit card, and simply needs a replacement mailed to him is told he may have to wait two weeks and pay for standard delivery -- or pay roughly $90 to get it quickly.
The representative said she would *try* to have the standard mailing fee waived, but could make no commitment.
This is bigger than $15 or $90.
It is about what those charges and processes communicate to a long-standing member: **your loyalty does not matter.**
For an institution that describes itself as member-focused, this experience should concern CPCU leadership. Member satisfaction is not measured by whether someone eventually answers the telephone. It is measured by how easy you make it for members to solve problems -- particularly elderly members who may need additional assistance.
CPCU should be asking itself some difficult questions:
- Why does an elderly member have to navigate multiple systems and multiple phone calls for something this basic?
- Why are replacement-card delivery fees being imposed on members who have entrusted CPCU with their finances for decades?
- Why does expedited shipping cost approximately $90?
- Why isn't there greater discretion for customer-service representatives to take care of long-standing members immediately?
- And most importantly: **What is the lifetime value of a 35+ year member compared with the $15 CPCU is attempting to collect for mailing a replacement debit card?**
That is the part of this experience that is so disappointing.
Financial institutions such as **Navy Federal Credit Union, USAA, and even large national banks such as Bank of America** have invested heavily in making banking easier, faster, and more customer-friendly. Our experience with CPCU felt years behind those organizations.
After more than three decades of loyalty, my father should not feel like an inconvenience to his credit union.
I am now encouraging him to move his accounts away from CPCU.
And if I were a member of CPCU's executive leadership or Board of Directors reading this, I would be far more concerned about that fact than the loss of one account. I would be concerned that the policies and customer-service processes that produced this experience may be quietly driving away other long-term members as well.
**CPCU didn't lose our confidence because of a $15 fee. It lost our confidence because the entire experience suggested that decades of loyalty no longer matter.**
That should alarm anyone responsible for CPCU's member experience. read more
