Today’s carol and credit union story is captured in the opening line of the music below. First, the credit union’s account.
Every Touchpoint Matters
This is the story of a member contacting the President of his Credit Union after reading the monthly Newsletter. And what happened next. (used with permission)
From: Daniel H. <dh@xxx.com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2023 11:32 AM
To: Jeff Carpenter <jeffc@weokie.org>
Subject: Thank you
I received your news letters In Regards of thanksgiving and all the delightful things Weokie does for their members. my wife and I are thankful for you and the company for providing good deeds to the community. we ourselves have been struggling and I’m not going to lie. our account has been at struggles with overdrafting every month to make ends meet. but we work every day to try to improve ourselves to be better. one day our account will stay on the positive side and look forward to all the new adventures to come.
I loved this message because our member, who is going through some health and financial challenges, was simply thanking WEOKIE for being such a great community citizen.
Thanks to Diane we were able to learn more about his account. We agreed that I should reach out to see if a meeting would be of interest. I engaged in an email exchange with Daniel and coordinated a meeting with Daniel and his wife Jessica to meet with Patrick and myself at South.
Setting up a Meeting
Patrick did some great work preparingfor the meeting. Together we probed to learn their story and understand how they got to this situation. Much was from their trying to help so many others in their family.
Patrick talked through lots of options. I might have added some too, but in the end, Patrick was able to convince everyone (yes, including me) that taking “one step” not sixty, was the best path forward.
We extended a significant signature loan to get them out of the mountain of high-risk debt that was pushing them to the brink of financial collapse. Patrick was empathetic, yet firm, in his conversations. He was able to gain agreement to eliminate Courtesy Pay, for WEOKIE to handle the pay-offs, and to set up automatic loan payments on the day their monthly income is credited to their WEOKIE account – all of these help mitigate our risk.
We met with them, took the loan application, approved it, and paid off their high-interest loans in 48 hours. That led to the following email from Daniel:
From: Daniel H. <dh@xxx.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2023 3:47 PM
To: Jeff Carpenter <jeffc@weokie.org>
Subject: thank you
Jeff
My wife and I would like to thank you for the help you and your team for the opportunity to help us succeed in our goals and for giving us Patrick to work with. he was an awesome gentleman. he worked hard to help us out and succeeded in getting what we needed done for a good approval. I’m looking forward to a good start in bettering ourself. we will keep in contact and keep you updated on our success.
thanks again
Dan and Jessica
Special thanks to Melissa, Diane, and Patrick for letting me participate in living our vision of making a difference, one person at a time. And affirming that “every touchpoint matters” is a good strategy.
Today’s Music of the Season
The Wexford Carol is a traditional religious Irish Christmas carol originating from the town Enniscorthy in County Wexford. The subject of the song is the nativity of Jesus Christ. This recording is from Clare College, Cambridge in composer John Rutter’s arrangement, which begins with Good people all.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4sC1mDPWao)