Boost online loyalty with new tales

In an Aite Group webinar, Senior Analyst Ron Shevlin discussed ways in which financial institutions should reevaluate their marketing philosophies to increase online bill pay transactions and strengthen customer loyalty. "Whatever it is they're doing, it isn't working like it used to," Shevlin said.

According to Shevlin in the presentation entitled "Everything They Told You about Marketing Is Wrong: Online Payments ' Role in Earning Customer Loyalty," two factors negatively affect customer loyalty:

• Not using bill pay data in marketing campaigns
• The ineffectiveness of traditional advertising philosophies to maintain and grow customer bases

"Self-proclaimed advertising gurus" mislead businesses, Shevlin said. "The first is that marketing is the story we tell to consumers, and in my opinion this is a bad idea," he said. "A customer's level of engagement grows when they are allowed to tell themselves stories in order to rationalize and justify their behaviors, which is critical for payment professionals to pay attention to."

Story time

Shevlin explained that successful brands tell stories that consumers buy into. Consumers then make purchases online based on those stories. "It wasn't so much the advertising message that got people to buy time and time again," he said. "What got them to stay loyal to a particular product or company was the internal story in their head."

Customers had gone through positive experiences at their financial institutions and "consequently were in a better position to tell these stories, not only to themselves, but to others as well," he said.

After conducting research in the financial services industry over the past 10 years, Shevlin realized that patterns exist in the stories that instilled customer loyalty, and most of it had nothing to do with advertising or pricing or product quality. "In my research, it came down simply to three things: customer service over and above what was expected, assistance in helping customers make the right financial decisions and being really easy to do business with," he said.

Perception is reality

The upside of Shevlin's presentation was that traditional marketing approaches and strategies need to be tailored around consumer perceptions. The perception financial institutions want to foster is that businesses do what is best for customers and not the other way around.

"We've all heard stories about why customers stay loyal," Shevlin said. "Sales agents lived up to the values portrayed in a company's ad or Web site. They listened to a merchant's problems or concerns and, most importantly, responded quickly to their inquiries."

The second factor to growing customer loyalty resides in financial institutions' ability to better utilize online bill pay data in marketing campaigns, Shevlin reported. This is critical because potential online transaction growth over the next few years will be significant. Additionally, online bill payers have higher retention rates than brick-and-mortar customers and traditionally purchase more products and services online.

"Electronic bill payments currently account for about half of all bill payments," Shevlin said. "By 2012, online bill transactions will make up two-thirds of all bills paid, so financial institutions need to do some work in terms of raising the bar in delivering more comprehensive bill payment solutions and extended service."

Whether you want to upgrade your POS offerings, find a payment gateway partner, bone up on fintech regs or PCI requirements, find an upcoming trade show, read about faster payments, or discover the latest innovations in merchant acquiring, The Green Sheet is the resource for you. Since 1983, we've helped empower and connect payments professionals, starting with the merchant level salespeople who bring tailored payment acceptance and digital commerce tools, along with a host of other business services to merchants across the globe. The Green Sheet Inc. is also a proud affiliate of Bankcard Life, a premier community that provides industry-leading training and resources for payment professionals.

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