JD Powers: Brand Image Matters Most in Selecting a Retail Bank

JD Powers has spoken ... and the Brand gods are pleased!

On July 14, JD Powers released it's inaugural study on the bank shopping ad selection process.

Financial marketers get a sharp pencil and take note:

36% of a shopper’s selection decision is driven by the bank’s brand image, while branch proximity (21%) and products and services (14%) also considerably influence which bank shoppers ultimately choose

Branch employees can positively impact a bank’s brand image by providing personal service, communicating proactively and having a customer-driven focus.

Nearly 1/3 of customers who avoid considering a particular bank altogether do so because of a previous poor service experience with that bank

Banks can use visits by non-customers as an opportunity to showcase their services and improve consideration when these customers shop for a new bank

Recommendations—both positive and negative—account for 31 percent of importance weight in a bank’s brand awareness, while positive recommendations drive 36 percent of a shopper’s consideration of a bank

Satisfaction with the account initiation process increases considerably when bank employees perform simple actions to improve the service experience when opening a new account—including greeting the customer when entering the branch, keeping wait time to five minutes or less, calling the customer by name and providing the customer with a detailed needs assessment. Among the 19 percent of customers who experienced all these actions, satisfaction scores average 890 on a 1,000-point scale—84 points above the industry average. In addition, the percentage of customers who say they “definitely will” reuse the bank for future products and services increases to 66 percent, compared with an industry average of 47 percent.

The bottom line, a dollar spent in training will yield tremendous results.  In short, your entire institution philosophy should be to treat every visitor (regardless of their balance or need) as you would treat a guest in your home: Sincere greeting, hand shakes and eye contact, talk to by name, listen before you speak, escort from point-to-point, walk them to the door when leaving.

I hope this provides some support as you strive for a budget to train your staff.

Take care,

Eric

The 2009 Retail Bank Shopping Study is based on responses from more than 7,500 consumers who shopped for a new banking account or new primary financial institution during the past 12 months. The study was fielded in February and March 2009, and includes 25 banks: Bank of America; Bank of the West; BBVA Compass; Branch Banking & Trust; Capital One; Chase; Citibank; Citizens Bank; Comerica; Fifth Third; HSBC; Huntington National Bank; KeyBank; M&T Bank; National City; PNC Bank; Regions Bank; Sovereign Bank; SunTrust; TD Bank; U.S. Bank; Union Bank of California; Wachovia; WaMu; and Wells Fargo.