Bank Customer Retention Strategies

The creation and implementation of financial institution customer retention strategies, including bank customer retention strategies is one of the core strengths of the Genroe organisation.

There are a range of strategies that can be implemented and we tend to summarise them based on a customer's position in the customer lifecycle.

The lifecycle is shown below along with the value that different types of customers contribute to the business at different parts of the cycle.

New

The single largest group of customer retention strategies that can be implemented in the New section of the customer lifecycle is Onboarding. Onboarding is the process of bedding a customer into your organisation and includes ensuring that their personal data is correct, that they understand the products they have purchased and how to quickly contact the organisation.

We have proved time and again that customers that are properly onboarded will stay with the company longer and spend more money than other customers.

Existing

The best bank customer retention stategy for existing customers is to classify each type of customer (silent attrition, ideal and unhappy) and create appropriate initiatives to change their behaviour.

For instance customers in silent attrition are those that have reduced or stopped using a product but where the account is still open. Examples for instance are credit card accounts with little or no spending. For these customers you must determine why they are no longer using your product (are you are their "back of wallet" card) and create initiatives to change their behaviour.

Exiting

Customers that are Exiting are those customers that have started the process of moving their business to another company or are in the process of considering that move. The first step in creating bank customer retention strategies for Exiting customers is to identify which customers are in each camp.

Indicators of customers considering a move include requests for loan payout details.

For customers in the process of moving their business you will need to understand the product drop cycle, i.e. the order in which customers drop your products before leaving. With this information you can create effective customer retention strategies to target those customers.

Exited

Generically, strategies that are aimed at recapturing customers that have left the organisation are called Winback strategies. This is the most expensive and lowest ROI place to try to implement your bank customer retention strategies. Mentally customers have already moved to another organisation and it takes a large inducement to bring them back.

If you do choose execute Winback strategies then you will need to carefully manage the level of incentive that your staff can offer to customers. For instance you will need rules to tailor the incentive level to each specific customer in order to ensure that the level of inducement is not larger than the future business generated by that customer.