There’s a moment that plays out every day in your credit union.
A member walks into a branch with a request. The MSR has handled something like this before, but not in a while. They remember going through it in training, but that was a long time ago and the details are a little fuzzy.
They get started and work through the process.
Then something doesn’t look right. The screen isn’t what they expect, or the steps don’t line up the way they remember.
At that point, they have to stop and ask for help.
A manager gets pulled in. The member waits a little longer than expected. And the employee, who started out confident, isn’t so sure anymore.
If you’ve spent any time in a branch or contact center, you’ve seen this happen. You know exactly how it feels for everyone involved.
This is what we call the moment of performance.
The moment of performance is anytime a staff member of your credit union has to:
It applies to everyone. Tellers, loan officers, branch managers, even leadership. These moments of performance show up all day, every day.
For many roles, especially on the front lines, the volume alone is daunting. Tellers, for example, are often expected to know how to perform over 500 different tasks, each with their own nuances, exceptions, and requirements.
“It’s that moment when there’s somebody standing in front of you, and you don’t know what to do. The fear sets in. You’re uncertain about what to do, and the member is just standing there waiting.”
That’s the reality of the moment your team is stepping into over and over again throughout the day. And depending on the situation, a few different things can happen.
When that moment shows up, staff are doing their best to respond. We see three situations come up:
The employee knows the process, follows the right steps, and the member gets fast, accurate service. The interaction goes smoothly, and the employee feels confident.
But this outcome is still dependent on memory.
As soon as something changes, the employee’s performance starts to break down. And when it does, this situation quickly turns into the next one.
The employee has seen this before and remembers most of the process, but steps are missed, completed out of order, or done incorrectly.
This is where inconsistency starts to show up between employees, branches, and across the member experience.
It can also introduce compliance and regulatory risk, especially when processes aren’t followed exactly as required. These mistakes often lead to rework, corrections, and additional follow-up to fix what went wrong.
In this case, the employee pauses and reaches out to a manager or a subject-matter expert for help.
This helps avoid mistakes and ensures the member eventually gets the right answer. But it comes at a cost.
Managers and experienced staff become a constant source of support throughout the day, getting pulled into questions and unable to focus on their own responsibilities. Over time, this turns into a revolving door of interruptions.
For the employee, it can also impact confidence. Instead of feeling equipped to handle situations on their own, they become more dependent on others to step in.
Most credit unions don’t live in just one of these scenarios. They move between them throughout the day.
And over time, that variability starts to show up in the experience for both employees and members.
These moments show up across your credit union in very real ways.
You see it in inconsistencies. The same request handled differently depending on the employee, the branch, or the channel.
You see it in mistakes and rework. Steps missed, processes done incorrectly, and time spent fixing issues that shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
You see it in escalations. Managers and subject matter experts getting pulled in throughout the day to answer questions, making it difficult to focus on their own responsibilities.
You see it in your employees. They escalate more often, rely on others to confirm what they’re doing, and aren’t always sure they’re getting it right.
You see it in your operations. Longer handle times, more escalations, more rework, and higher training costs.
And they show up in the member experience. Slower service, inconsistent answers, and interactions that don’t feel as confident as they should.
In the moment of performance, your employee is the credit union.
They’re the ones answering the question, solving the problem, and guiding the member through what happens next. The member isn’t thinking about your systems, your training programs, or your internal processes. They’re experiencing your credit union through that interaction.
Credit unions are built on the idea of People Helping People, and that shows up in how you serve your members and your community. It also needs to show up in how you support your staff.
When employees are supported in the moment of performance, they can follow the right process, move quickly, and give members clear, consistent answers.
“To our members, our branch and contact center staff are the Credit Union. That’s who the member knows. That’s who they see. So they need to be supported with the tools to put their best foot forward.”
– Christine Alward, AVP Member Experience at Jeanne D’Arc Credit Union
Supporting your team in these moments isn’t just about operations. It’s about making sure your members get the experience your credit union is built to provide.
Most credit unions recognize this challenge and have tried to address it in a few different ways.
Longer onboarding, more classroom sessions, more time spent walking through processes. That helps, but there’s a limit to how much someone can retain, especially when the role requires them to perform hundreds of different tasks.
It's like trying to pour a gallon of water into a 16-oz. cup. It just doesn't fit.
And even when training is done well, things change. Processes are updated, systems evolve, and what someone learned a few months ago may no longer apply the same way.
So employees fall back on what they remember, and performance starts to vary from person to person.
Teams put in the effort to capture processes and build out procedures, often ending up with a shared drive full of resources. The issue is that most of that content wasn’t designed for the moment of performance. It’s long, hard to find, and difficult to use while helping a member in real time.
When an employee doesn’t know what to do, they’re not going to dig through a 30-page PDF. They’re going to ask their manager.
More recently, some credit unions have looked to AI chat tools, feeding that documentation into a system that can surface answers. But if the data (read: knowledge) isn’t clear, structured, and accurate, the experience doesn’t change much. It can still take time to find the right answer, and it’s not always something employees feel confident following in the moment.
None of these approaches are wrong. They just weren’t built for the moment your employees are actually trying to do the work.
If the challenge shows up in the moment of performance, the solution has to show up there too.
Employees don’t need more information to remember. They need trusted answers and guidance they can rely on while they’re doing the work.
That’s where Knowledge Operations comes in.
Instead of expecting employees to recall everything from training, Knowledge Operations gives them clear, trusted SOPs they can find and follow in real time. The focus shifts from memorization to execution.
For Knowledge Operations to work, those SOPs have to be designed differently.
This isn’t about managing knowledge. It’s about operationalizing it.
Trusted SOPs need to be:
When that’s in place, employees don’t have to guess or rely on memory. They can follow a consistent process, move more quickly, and give members clear, accurate answers.
"Seeing a new loan officer close a loan entirely on their own, with only the help of our SOPs, was incredibly exciting! It’s a game-changer for branch managers, allowing their teams to work independently and reducing pressure on leadership."
– Jill Jones, Director of Branch Operations at Desert Rivers Credit Union
At this point, most teams understand what this should look like. The challenge is getting there.
There’s existing documentation to work through, processes to capture, and a long list of priorities competing for time. Turning everything into clear, usable guidance can feel like a much bigger effort than most teams have capacity for.
This is where ScreenSteps comes in.
Most credit unions are sitting on a pile of historical documentation (PDFs, Word docs, PowerPoints, emails, notes) spread across different systems. The issue isn’t a lack of information. It’s that the information isn’t structured for the moment of performance.
ScreenSteps takes that existing content and turns it into clear, structured SOPs that are easy to find and follow in real time.
There are always gaps. Processes that were never fully documented or that live in someone’s head. Instead of starting from scratch, teams can simply talk through a procedure or record a workflow, and ScreenSteps will generate a structured guide.
What used to take weeks or months to document can now be done in minutes.
“I LOVE the AI tools for getting knowledge out of my head. It’s so easy to talk through the process and have the ScreenSteps AI create the guide. What would have taken me a month to do, I was able to get done in a day.”
– Mandy Burton, Processing Department Manager at Heritage South Credit Union
With the ScreenSteps Sidekick browser extension, employees can access the right SOPs directly within the systems they’re already using, without switching tabs or digging through folders and documents. They can find what they need and follow it while they’re working with a member.
Processes change. Policies evolve. Systems get updated. ScreenSteps makes it easy to maintain and improve your SOPs over time, so employees can trust that what they’re using is accurate and current.
At Wichita Federal Credit Union, this shift had a clear impact.
Before implementing ScreenSteps, tellers frequently had to escalate questions, which slowed down service and created delays for members.
After putting Knowledge Operations in place, employees could find and follow answers in real time while helping members.
Real quotes from Wichita FCU tellers using ScreenSteps:
“Today I used the article How to remove a joint owner from an existing account while helping a member. It made the process a lot easier knowing I had the article for reassurance.”
“I used ScreenSteps today with a member to tell her what documents she needed to change her name… I am loving it so much!”
“I just had a member request to wire money… I really liked how it walked me through the questions, especially with having the member in front of me.”
“Today I used the article covering the qualification requirements for mobile deposits. I was able to tell the member when they will qualify according to their account type.”
These are small moments, but they’re the ones that happen all day, every day. When those moments improve, everything else starts to follow.
You can read the full Wichita FCU success story here.
Every credit union deals with these moments.
Moments where an employee is trying to help, trying to get it right, and trying to move things forward while a member is depending on them.
When those moments are supported well, employees can work with confidence, managers have more space to focus on their responsibilities, and members get consistent, reliable service.
If you want to improve consistency, reduce escalations, and give your team more confidence, it starts by solving for the moment of performance.