Banking on Reviews: Driving Customer Loyalty for Financial Institutions

For banks, the landscape is changing, much the way the retailing landscape began to change a decade ago. Prospects and new customers are used to doing business online, switching costs are lower, and consumers are shopping online for all types of products and services – including financial services.

Retailers have learned that customer-generated content, specifically ratings and reviews, help drive acquisition, help increase customer satisfaction, and can be used to make their advertising efforts more fruitful. Today, customer ratings and reviews are standard for top retailers' Web sites, and banks would do well to follow suit. Forrester and Shop.org found that 96% of top retailers ranked customer ratings and reviews as an effective or very effective tactic at driving conversion.

The Internet brings consumers seemingly endless options for banking, competition is fierce online and offline, and those who take cues from retail marketing can effectively differentiate themselves. This paper will show how customer-generated content strategies and overall transparency can help financial institutions see gains similar to those of online and multichannel retailers.

This white paper shows that putting customers in charge, giving them a voice online, then moving that voice to other marketing channels can help banks differentiate themselves in the wake of growing competition.