O'Garage - Applied to Credit Unions?
Yesterday, I received the latest edition of the Springwise free email on new business ideas (highly recommend you subscribe to this and their trend watching newsletter) and was immediately drawn to the O'Garage concept in France. The O'Garage concept goes against conventional thinking in today's auto repair business (the autos are too complex to repair and consumers just want it fixed) and that is why I like it. O'Garage is a place where do-it-yourselfers can go and have access to a clean garage with the latest and greatest equipment. They also have a parts store located right in the O'Garage. So walk with me here, imagine that you would prefer to maintenance and/or do light repairs yourself instead of forking over hundreds of dollars to the dealership. You contact O'Garage and make an appointment to have access to a bay that includes a car lift and any diagnostic equipment you need and all of the standard parts are there for you to access. Now, maybe I am smitten with the idea as I used to own a 1975 MGB that I restored. This was before I had kids so a two-seater was ideal and I had plenty of time to work on it. Plus, any of you that have owned a British sportscar like this, you know that you need time and patience (Lucas electronics - enough said). I would have loved to have access to a car lift and a garage like this to work on my toy car.
Enough with the concept as I know you are saying okay, how in the world does this relate to credit unions let alone lending. No, I am not thinking of installing car lifts outside of the drive through lanes. As I was watching the Longhorns vs. Trojans last night I kept thinking about this idea and how it might apply to credit unions. My friend, Andy Mattingly - SVP of Marketing and Strategy, at FORUM saw the Springwise newsletter and was asking me the same question - wow, what a cool idea - how could this apply to what we are doing. Well, during my shower this morning it hit me (come on it is the best place to think). One of the recurring themes I see in my personal life is friends and neighbors keep approaching me that they are having problems with their PC and would like for me to take a look at their PC for them because they can not figure out how to fix it. It seems like ninety percent of the time these problems can be resolved through some virus, spyware and/or general utility programs. The solution takes time, but most are correctable. PC users often don't know where to turn to get the advice they need and if they do get advice they are timid about trying it. Now pour the O'Garage concept and this recurring theme in to the beaker stir for 15 minutes and what do you get?
What if your credit union hired a PC tech guru and we set up office hours on a rotating branch basis. For example, on Wednesdays from 8am to 1pm our tech guru will be available at our southside location. Now, I admit at FORUM Solutions, our technology subsidiary at FORUM CU, we have pondered offering a PC repair service but we have always been scared of the liability. In this case, we set up a mini lab on a rotating basis at each branch location with a high speed Internet connection (not connected to the credit union's network) and we offer assistance. We don't fix the PC for the member, but instead we offer advice as they sit in front of their own PC that they brought into the branch and we help them fix their own problem and most importantly educate them on how to avoid the problem in the future. Now I know Best Buy has the Geek Squad that comes to your house but that is expensive and can be intimidating. Some might even say it could be embarrassing to have that little VW bug with Geek Squad on the side parked outside their house all day. So do you think this idea has merit? If no, please stop reading here and browse on to another much more worthy site. If yes, bear with me as I have some pricing ideas that could compliment this concept.
Pricing ideas - what if a credit union offered this free for their Platinum members (however you define them - services, profit, etc...), charged $30 per hour for your Gold members (again, however you define them) and $50 per hour for your members you want to do more business with. Then with the $50 per hour segment you tell them that after their PC consulting is complete that if they spend 10 minutes with a credit union advisor that we will charge them only $30. The $30 crowd could be offered the same by saying if you spend 10 minutes with the credit union advisor this visit is free. If you are like our credit union we are always looking for ways to engage our members in meaningful conversation so we can help them improve their financial lives. This might be the ticket to get more branch traffic, better branch profitability, and more business. Plus, these members are using a PC so they hopefully will be more apt to use electronic services in the future. Let's face it fancy coffee and donuts will only draw a certain crowd and number of people. Would the banks offer this? Something to think about.
How does this apply to lending? Two-fold. First, the members who sit down with a credit union advisor could be potential credit union borrowers, Second, if the member brings in their Commodore 64 and it can not be fixed, who better to provide some advice on what kind of PC to purchase and we can finance it for them right there. Perhaps, some type of partnership with a PC provider?
Challenge: How can we make this idea better and is it worthy of taking the next step?
Hook'em Horns
Yesterday, I received the latest edition of the Springwise free email on new business ideas (highly recommend you subscribe to this and their trend watching newsletter) and was immediately drawn to the O'Garage concept in France. The O'Garage concept goes against conventional thinking in today's auto repair business (the autos are too complex to repair and consumers just want it fixed) and that is why I like it. O'Garage is a place where do-it-yourselfers can go and have access to a clean garage with the latest and greatest equipment. They also have a parts store located right in the O'Garage. So walk with me here, imagine that you would prefer to maintenance and/or do light repairs yourself instead of forking over hundreds of dollars to the dealership. You contact O'Garage and make an appointment to have access to a bay that includes a car lift and any diagnostic equipment you need and all of the standard parts are there for you to access. Now, maybe I am smitten with the idea as I used to own a 1975 MGB that I restored. This was before I had kids so a two-seater was ideal and I had plenty of time to work on it. Plus, any of you that have owned a British sportscar like this, you know that you need time and patience (Lucas electronics - enough said). I would have loved to have access to a car lift and a garage like this to work on my toy car.
Enough with the concept as I know you are saying okay, how in the world does this relate to credit unions let alone lending. No, I am not thinking of installing car lifts outside of the drive through lanes. As I was watching the Longhorns vs. Trojans last night I kept thinking about this idea and how it might apply to credit unions. My friend, Andy Mattingly - SVP of Marketing and Strategy, at FORUM saw the Springwise newsletter and was asking me the same question - wow, what a cool idea - how could this apply to what we are doing. Well, during my shower this morning it hit me (come on it is the best place to think). One of the recurring themes I see in my personal life is friends and neighbors keep approaching me that they are having problems with their PC and would like for me to take a look at their PC for them because they can not figure out how to fix it. It seems like ninety percent of the time these problems can be resolved through some virus, spyware and/or general utility programs. The solution takes time, but most are correctable. PC users often don't know where to turn to get the advice they need and if they do get advice they are timid about trying it. Now pour the O'Garage concept and this recurring theme in to the beaker stir for 15 minutes and what do you get?
What if your credit union hired a PC tech guru and we set up office hours on a rotating branch basis. For example, on Wednesdays from 8am to 1pm our tech guru will be available at our southside location. Now, I admit at FORUM Solutions, our technology subsidiary at FORUM CU, we have pondered offering a PC repair service but we have always been scared of the liability. In this case, we set up a mini lab on a rotating basis at each branch location with a high speed Internet connection (not connected to the credit union's network) and we offer assistance. We don't fix the PC for the member, but instead we offer advice as they sit in front of their own PC that they brought into the branch and we help them fix their own problem and most importantly educate them on how to avoid the problem in the future. Now I know Best Buy has the Geek Squad that comes to your house but that is expensive and can be intimidating. Some might even say it could be embarrassing to have that little VW bug with Geek Squad on the side parked outside their house all day. So do you think this idea has merit? If no, please stop reading here and browse on to another much more worthy site. If yes, bear with me as I have some pricing ideas that could compliment this concept.
Pricing ideas - what if a credit union offered this free for their Platinum members (however you define them - services, profit, etc...), charged $30 per hour for your Gold members (again, however you define them) and $50 per hour for your members you want to do more business with. Then with the $50 per hour segment you tell them that after their PC consulting is complete that if they spend 10 minutes with a credit union advisor that we will charge them only $30. The $30 crowd could be offered the same by saying if you spend 10 minutes with the credit union advisor this visit is free. If you are like our credit union we are always looking for ways to engage our members in meaningful conversation so we can help them improve their financial lives. This might be the ticket to get more branch traffic, better branch profitability, and more business. Plus, these members are using a PC so they hopefully will be more apt to use electronic services in the future. Let's face it fancy coffee and donuts will only draw a certain crowd and number of people. Would the banks offer this? Something to think about.
How does this apply to lending? Two-fold. First, the members who sit down with a credit union advisor could be potential credit union borrowers, Second, if the member brings in their Commodore 64 and it can not be fixed, who better to provide some advice on what kind of PC to purchase and we can finance it for them right there. Perhaps, some type of partnership with a PC provider?
Challenge: How can we make this idea better and is it worthy of taking the next step?
Hook'em Horns
2 Comments:
I like the idea. I would go a bit further. For example, Apple has a great way for non-techie users to talk to experts on a wide range of topics. They call this the Apple Genius Bar
They also have a calendar of events that happen at their store. For example, maybe one of their geniuses may be doing a seminar on iPhoto. It's really cool and basically gets people in their store.
If you go to any Apple store one thing you will find is people. They're usally very busy. Check them out if you're in the neighborhood.
Great Idea!
Cam
By Cam Minges, at 12:17 PM
Expanding on the idea of a PC tech, why confine it to just PC problems. What if we provide instruction/assistance with personal software applications, like photo editing or video editing ,etc. Or even help with setting up Quicken...I have had several people ask me help with automatic Updates with Quicken and that could a direct tie back to our online banking program.
And what if you tied sessions on securing wireless home networks, etc as part of this. How many times have we all had the ability to connect to several home WIFI connections.
I like the O'Garage concept.
Andy
By andy mattingly, at 1:40 PM
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