Developing and marketing a personal bank meeting : Case study: Online meetings in Bank X

The banking industry is going through significant changes. An industry that has cherished very personal and discrete customer relationships is now influenced by the technological development. Technology has made banking faster, easier and safer while consumer habits, behaviour and demand have changed. However, regulation and requirements set by authorities have made operatingvery controlled and strict. This research aims to answer five research questions: How is customer relationship management (CRM) used, and what are personal relationships like between banks and customers in the banking sector? What are online bank meetings and what are their benefits and weaknesses in connection to deepening the customer relationships? How are online meetings used and marketed in banking in Finland? What is the effect of digital bank services on personal customer relationships in Finland? How can banks increase the use of online meetings for interacting with their customers? The literature review will first introduce retail banking; a brief history, what the market looks like in Finland and what trends and changes can be expected. Then it will look into how digital services are marketed, what services there are and focus on a relatively new concept, online bank meetings. Finally, the theory section will present earlier research on what customer relationship management means, what affects customer behaviour and how banks actually manage customer relationships and why it is so important. In Finland, the market is dominated by three major banks: OP Financial Group, Nordea Bank and Danske Bank which offer very similar services and products.Marketing digital services in retail banking is very focused on the customer experience itself,while banks become multi-channel service providers and customer touch points take place in several places or platforms. As the demand for easier and more digital services increases, banks still have struggled to reach all their customers for two main reasons: some do not wish to transfer to digital services, others do not see the value these services include. Still, banking is very digital today and the next step is to provide expert advice remotely in addition to already existing self-service channels. Finnish banks have lately introduced online bank meetings where customers can discuss with a bank’s adviser and receive advice on different banking subjects. The concept is simple, but yet little studied and used. The thesis includes an empirical research where experts from the selected case bank took part in a qualitative research in the form of semi-structured interviews. The questions were about the case bank ́s customer relationship management, online meetings and the informants’ personal input on the local retail bank market. The research shows that all informants understand the significance of technological development in banking and how the relationship between banks and customers changes, but all banks should put more effort into this before it can be considered to be too late. New competition is arriving and attractive solutions are appearing.Therefore, the great amount of customer data should be put to use to provide more personated services that have real time functionalities. Online meetings,too,require more attention and could be developed further,but also other alternatives for providing service can be considered