The 3 Biggest Challenges of Moving From Order Takers to Financial Advisors

When members visit their local credit union, they want more than something strictly transactional. After all, they could easily just deposit their check via their mobile phones. Members desire something more in 2026. It goes beyond the regular chit chat about an upcoming weekend barbecue or sprawling family event. (Though chatting is important, too.)

So, what do members want more of? Financial advice from credit unions.

The share of credit unions providing professional financial advice to members continued to grow, reaching 23.4% last year.

Not all credit union employees are ready to dole out helpful heapfuls of financial advice, however. Most frontline staff still act like “order takers” rather than advisors.

Let’s look at the three biggest challenges of turning frontline staff members into financial advisors then how to overcome those challenges.

1. Staggering Cost of Staff Turnover

Most credit unions are hyperfocused on the challenges of retaining their frontline employees, such as tellers and member service representatives. That concern is 100% understandable when you realize that the turnover rate for staff is a whopping 18% to 25%. Plus, the expense of that turnover is about $12,000 per position at a credit union.

One of the biggest reasons for that high staff turnover is burn out and boredom. Frontline staff can fall into the trap of repeated transactional work. “Here’s the receipt for your deposit.” “Here’s the receipt for your withdrawal.” “Here’s [insert transactional task here] …” You get the picture. That type of repetition can lull your frontline staff into stretches of boredom, which can lead to mistakes. But if there’s a flurry of activity at the credit union location, your staff can suddenly be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of transactional tasks.

No one’s going to be thinking that they should, on top of all that, offer financial advice. Yet that’s what members want.

What can be done to tackle this issue?

Almost 80% of consumers want their financial providers to help them improve their financial health.

Solutions

• Redefine the teller position. When staff members feel bored, their work shows it. They do their work without much joy or passion, which reflects in their interactions with members. “A job’s a job” is their mantra, and it shows. But when credit unions revisit the teller position, they can automate (or eliminate) menial tasks and add more layered responsibilities to their role. In this case, staff members can begin to see themselves as financial advisors for members.
• Map out career milestones. Staff members who can influence where they are going within the credit union are more likely to stay put. In knowing where their career is heading, they can focus on reaching those goals. That, in itself, creates more enthusiasm for their position and makes them feel seen.
• Encourage microlearning. Invest in your frontline staff. Use bite-sized learning modules, such as those from LemonadeLXP, to help them move from transactional to financial advisory. In letting your staff choose their own pace of learning, you eliminate putting too much pressure on them
  

Highly engaged teams deliver 23% higher profitability, 81% lower absenteeism, and 59% lower turnover in high-turnover industries.

2. High Overhead, Low Staff Count

A devoted segment of members prefer to physically go to credit unions. Yes, even in this digital age!

“52% of consumers still value credit unions’ personalized, face-to-face service and the peace of mind that comes with knowing help is available in person when needed,” according to a CSI article.

Unfortunately, some of that real estate is expensive. Credit unions then face high overhead costs … which results in lower staff numbers … because of high overhead costs. The reduced staff also has to navigate that physical space, which often can mean going through manual documents and internal intranets.

“Agents spend an average of 20% of their time searching for information during customer interactions,” according to McKinsey.

Who has time to think about members’ desire for financial advice when the credit union is struggling with a reduced staff?

Solutions

• Ditch the manual document, adopt instant AI-powered answers. For example, by using an AI tool, such as InsightAI, credit union staff members can find information fast and reduce wasted time.
• Reduce interruptions. Fewer interruptions mean more time. Having staff members quickly access answers for members’ questions translates into a more efficient workforce.
• Automate the content creation process. Have procedures and policies that you need your frontline staff to understand? Use InsightAI to easily create interactive training modules rather than starting from scratch or sharing dull instructional videos with them.
  

3. Steep Learning Curve

Another challenge that credit unions have in turning their frontline workers into financial advisors is the increasingly steep learning curve. With all the tasks that they already have to do, frontline employees keep pushing their own self-education lower and lower on their priority list. And unfortunately, many credit unions also focus more on the immediate issue rather than take valuable time to solve the problems. Because there are two problems that really exist: a steep learning curve and the employees’ lack of time.

Solution

Credit unions can flatten the learning curve (or, at least, shorten it) by implementing faster, more engaging training tools. After all, no one wants to sit in a poorly lit backroom of a credit union and watch boring, lengthy videos with a talking head. (And even if they did want to watch the videos,) the brain can only retain so much information.

Research on the forgetting curve shows that within 1 hour, learners forget an average of 50% of the information presented; within 24 hours, they forget an average of 70% of new information; and within a week, they forget up to 90% of what they “learned,”

The best method then for learning and retaining information is to do it in shorter blocks of time with breaks in between.

In other words, a training module that incorporates games, such as Lemonade.

Grab this free guide “5 Ways to Leverage AI for Training and Support” to discover how to make that training painless.

The Final Squeeze

The path from taking your transactional frontline employees to financial advisors may seem too rigorous and time-consuming. If you do that all manually, then, yes, it will be.

However, if you follow these steps and choose LemonadeLXP as your AI-powered AI training platform), you will find the movement to financial advisors easier and more engaging.

How to Turn Your Transactional Employee to a Financial Advisor: A Quick Checklist

• Replace passive, forced reading of documentation, and bring in active, student-lead microlearning.
• Use automated coaching tools for roleplay of real-world advisory conversations.
• Offer interactive technology walk-throughs of digital banking tools.
• Create and deploy an AI-powered knowledge assistant, so staff can find answers instantly.
• Map out career milestones. Let your staff members have a sense of growth and direction by visually creating a career development path.
• Determine what tasks at the credit union can be automated, thus freeing up frontline employees to do more financial advising.