Customer Relationship Building

Financial service companies of all types are examining ways to expand and solidify established customer relationships, as well as build new ones. Most bank products have reached the point of maturity where new account growth has slowed or stopped; therefore, marketing activity has been heavily focused on fighting for or maintaining market share. Today, there is greater competition than ever before, and non-bank financial service companies have the ability to offer banking products to their customers. As part of this trend, service providers, such as First Data and TSYS, have introduced customer relationship management (CRM) features into their systems to better serve their clients’ needs.

Given these market conditions, many banks and financial institutions are competing to encourage customers to consolidate their accounts with them, as a sole provider. However, consumers have been taught to shop around for individual products based on features/benefits, rates and fees. In this issue of Cardbeat, we examine what financial products consumers currently hold and where they are held; what consumers consider to be their primary bank or financial institution; reasons consumers do and do not consolidate their accounts with their primary lender; the relative importance of branch location and its impact on likelihood to acquire new products in the future; and consumer willingness to consider their credit card issuer as a provider of various financial products and the effect of incentives on that decision. Data included in this report were gathered using a web survey administered to 400 credit card users in the U.S. during May 2009.