In my past articles, I have always been using the story of Samson and the bank. I have explained how he was treated harshly and the steps that he took after that. In this article, I want to look at how to excite informal Customers effectively.
What do I mean by informal customers ….
Informal customers are elderly customers who have not passed through the four walls of a university. They are elderly citizens who would like to be served in the convenience of their homes. Let me show you in this article how you can retain this kind of customer for life.
The second customer is Samson’s parents- a busy, older retired couple who love to travel and who also have standard banking requirements. A point of interest here is that although Samson’s parents are individual people, each with specific relationships to bank products, they function as an economic decision-making unit.
This unit is recognised by the bank as a type of customer and is treated as such.
Samson’s parents do not own a debit card and rarely if ever, use the ATM service. They use the monthly account statements to balance their chequebook, and they open and read all the literature that comes to their house from the bank.
Samson’s parents frequently visit their local branch to perform banking transactions. If they have banking operations while they are on a trip, they call the bank’s service centre and speak to a phone service representative.
Their package of products and services provides free cheques, free credit protection on their credit cards, and branch and service centre transactions support at no charge.
They have minimum balance requirements on their savings accounts and pay a fee for each non-bank ATM use.
A well-managed banking interaction that satisfies them and profits the bank would go like this:
Samson’s parents receive the monthly statement for their savings account. Included with the statement is a circular announcing an open house to introduce the new travel service associated with the bank’s credit card.
The statement also includes a letter from the branch manager personally inviting his parents to attend the open house. The letter also details a discounted travel promotion for a Caribbean cruise that will be featured at the event.
The letter from the branch manager is no accident. The bank understands that Samson’s parents have a high level of interest in luxury travel because of the consistent usage patterns on their credit cards.
The branches hosting the open house have also been selected with care; they are typically located in communities containing large concentrations of wealthy retired people.
His parents and others like them, have been identified as likely candidates to utilise the new travel service and have received personalised invitations to the open house.
