Will Retail Banking Ever Become More Customer Centric?
TripleIC recently sponsored this event held by the Financial Service’s Forum to discuss the continuing fractious relationships between retail banks and their customers.
Click the link to obtain a booklet with the full text of the presentation.
Andrew Porter, Managing Director, Financial Services Forum opened the meeting by citing three pieces of information:-
1. An FSF meeting a couple of months ago debated the question
“Will the easier route to switching accounts improve competition in retail banking?”
The overall conclusion was, sadly, “No”.
2. The Halifax have recently produced a report that highlights that over 50% of its customers have been with them for more than 20 years.
3. Accenture reported research showing that Current Account satisfaction has never been higher and that account switching has never been lower.
Yet if you read the press or review reports of bank customer surveys then the situation from outside the industry appears quite contrary to these views. So what are the prospects for banks to address the parlous state of their relationships with their customers?
Hedley Basford - TripleIC Ltd
Hedley set the scene usng the TripleIC retail banking research based on the company’s Customer Engagement toolset. The results were the worst seen across all business sectors.
68% of customers do not believe the banks care very much about them.
85% of customers do not believe the image and reputation of banks will improve anytime soon.
It seems that customers are not switching because they do not believe anywhere else will be an improvement.
Walter Merricks - Former Financial Services Ombudsman
Walter grabbed the audience’s attention when he showed the parlous state of complaint resolution by most, but not all, major banks. His six point plan for banks to improve customer relationships can be seen here
Anthony Thomson - Chairman, Metro Bank
Anthony’s entertaining session gave a run through the philosophy behind Metro Bank which is based on delivering banking with great customer service. He noted the figures published by Thunderhead that 53% of bank customers would switch for a better service which supports earlier quoted conclusions.
Metrobank’s implementation is based on three building blocks:-
a. Differentiation model
b. Underpinning culture
c. Relentless implementation
Stuart Roberts - Horton Wolfe
Stuart launched into showing how Big Data and its accompanying analysis is one major tool in the fight for customer retention in banking. It can be a key weapon in the personalisation of services to customers.
Conclusion
The post session debate was lively and all attendees left with a great sense that there is much to be done and there are Customer Engagement tools now available that will assist.
Meeting Report
For your own copy of our detailed summary of the presentations please use our Contact Us page.
What can TripleIC do for you?
TripleIC’s innovative and in-depth analysis tools help you keep your best customers and recruit more like them.
Your customers are a volunteer sales force who are dying to work for you if only you will let them.
TripleIC will help you turn your admirers into active and cumunicative advocates. You will move customers who are neutral into a more favourable attitude. You will convince your critics that you take them seriously and are responding strongly to their reservations. In time they too will become advocates.
Contact TripleIC today to find out how...Are the marketing campaigns of the major banks value for money?
It used to be true that corporate marketing campaigns could substantially determine the market positioning and brand strength of a corporation.
This proposition no longer holds good. Corporations telling us how closely they mirror the aspirations of their customers, often quoting encouraging statistics of questionable authenticity, remind us of Egyptian presidents telling us how beloved they are by their people while said people are dancing with anger in the square.
Research by TripleIC shows that the marketing campaigns of the major banks, with one notable exception, just are not being recognised. Not only are people not convinced by the slogans. They can’t even remember whose slogan it is. While a bank spends a fortune popularising a marketing tagline, the customers think it belongs to someone else.
They need to concentrate on what matters to customers, not spend a fortune on what is gone with the wind.
Are you involved with marketing and banks?
Contact us to find out more...Marketing success in a harsh climate: more clout for less cash
Does your sales graph look like this?
When your sales graph is heading south and your marketing budget is under pressure here are the three big "DONT's".
- DON'T spend megabucks on indiscriminate, broadcast campaigns that may or may not find targets.
- DON'T treat your current customers as a faceless mass or entries in a CRM file; they're real people.
- DON'T buy customers with introductory offers you can't sustain. They get irritated when normal terms are reimposed.
Now having thrown away the first three thoughts you may have had, what do you do that will give positive results?
DO concentrate on identifying and developing your current best customers so that you can do more business with them and attract more just like them.
- FIND your best customers, who buy regularly and advocate your business to others.
- UNDERSTAND what binds these good customers to you.
- KEEP these good customers and bind them ever closer.
- USE their advocacy to turn marginal cases into advocates.
This process is termed Customer Engagement (CE). It is the key to business success in tough times. TripleIC is a specialist company in CE that can deliver more marketing clout for less money.
Reduce Customer Churn.
How to develop your team’s ability to reduce churn?
Find out here...Who Owns Your Brand?
In the past, corporate brands were built by clever people in marketing departments. Messages about these brands were then devised and transmitted to passive recipients, the customers. The transmission of these messages was almost entirely a one-way process.
The advent of the mobile phone, the Internet and social networks has changed all that. Today a company’s brand is owned not by the firm’s board or its marketers. The brand is owned by the customers: they build it, they modify it, if they so decide they can dismantle it. The whole world has become one enormous, gossiping village. The customer-advocate is the key player.
Are you working with your customers to build and sustain your brand? Are you engaging with your customers through online media? If you’re not, bet your bottom dollar someone else is. And they’re probably talking about you.
Engaging with your customers isn’t a part-time activity for a handful of staff. It needs to become a way of life. It demands:-
- Methodology to track and sustain engagement
- Leadership to get the whole team on board
- Cultural change to get the message embedded in the company’s DNA
- Tactical skill to get different teams working as one
TRIPLEIC Ltd has the technology, the insight, experience and flair to guide your company through these critical tasks. This matter is too important to entrust to anyone but the best.
Assess and strengthen your…
Customer EngagementIts free to find out more…
Contact TripleIC now.