Customer Experience in Retail Banking Accenture/Satmetrix Sponsored Research - Glenn Donovan

In the fall of 2007, Accenture and Satmetrix conducted a detailed study of retail banking in North America to uncover consumer attitudes and loyalty toward their primary banking institution. The survey, which included responses from approximately 3500 customers addressing 16 institutions, covered all aspects of customer experience relating to checking account, including channels, product quality and services.

According to Susan Piotroski, Partner, Marketing & Customer Strategy Practice with Accenture, who delivered the presentation, when Accenture thinks about touch points, it’s important to consider all aspects of the experience, including the product experience. These factors are often not part of customer satisfaction surveys, which tend to focus on call center, web, branch, and the like.

These factors drive overall attitudes towards the institution. Thirty one percent of products and services drive loyalty, 54% were attributed to banking interactions. When the local interactions are examined, it turns out the local branch experience was most important, followed with about the same result for web experience and call center.

What matters to people in banking interactions? The ability to resolve issues and time to resolve. Online banking was the next most important function, closely followed by channel integration, meaning that all channels know who you are. Rising concerns include fees, security of personal information, and clarity of information about the financial products and related policies.

A great question/comment was made about not only bucketing the drivers but also clarifying those areas of most risk in the same way. Another question was raised about the importance of image in reputation. The biggest driver is customer experience, although reputation was important.

Accenture then performed needs based segmentation: I want it all, remote bankers, convenience bankers, and keep it easy bankers, in order of importance.

Accenture thinks customers are loyal for different reasons. As an example, there are people who shop around and those who don’t. Category involvement is a measurement of importance of the service to them. Brand commitment speaks to the emotional involvement with the brand. It also was revealed that those customers who were charged fees, were correlated with loyalty and other operating metrics.

This study has a wealth information that could not possibly be addressed in one session. I'm looking forward to reviewing it after the conference.