Customer Engagement - Banking Sector
The Vox Populi bank survey run by TripleIC calculates a Customer Engagement
IndexTM for each bank. The responses of 1000 bank customers selected to be a statistically significant representative national sample are represented above.
The Vox Populi survey was conducted using the celebrated ADVOCATE system
pioneered by TripleIC.
The leader on the rating of “Would recommend to a friend” were:
1. Nationwide 77 %
2. Barclays 72 %
3. HSBC 70 %
These figures will make positive reading for the top three banks. However, overall the Banks appear not to be making much of an impression with their mass media marketing campaigns in convincing customers that they really care about their relationship with them. Levels of distrust and misunderstanding are very high.
As an example, the marketing slogan ‘Helpful banking’ belongs to NatWest but it’s not recognised as theirs: more customers either mistakenly thought it belonged to Barclays, Halifax, HSBC or Lloyds TSB or said ‘Don’t know’ compared to those who got it right.
Slightly more women than men (about 10%) got this right. The only bank slogan widely recognised was HSBC’s: ‘The world’s local bank.’ The vivid visual imagery of
HSBC’s TV adverts and a resonant voice over may explain why. Here more men than women got it right. But when it comes to the other banks of note only Nationwide exceeded a 10% recognition value, but that pales compared to the almost 60% ‘Don’tknow’ response level they also receive.
Could they be wasting their marketing budgets at the expense of restoring the trust of the high street customer.
Overall, Banks scored very badly on the questions about customer care, reputation and likelihood of improvement.
Market opportunity exists for the Banking sector CEO who is able to address this core trust issue. Banks can create a better and more mutually rewarding relationships with customers by showing sensitivity to a customer’s current circumstances at an individual level rather than at the “customer segment” level.
The top players in the far more competitive Car Rental business, for example, have started to master the art of mass personalisation. As a simple example, try calling Budget Car Rental for a quote and count the number of seconds it takes for their call centre representative to begin using your first name. Gauge what that does to your feelings about using the company.
The current level of ill feeling towards Banks as a whole is recoverable - customers are waiting for the sector to make the first move.
For a copy of the full report contact introduction@fearlessconsulting.co.uk or call 0208 878 7491