Kristin Moyer

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Kristin R. Moyer
Research Director
11 years at Gartner
18 years IT industry

Kristin Moyer is a research director in Industry Advisory Services/Banking and Investment Services. She has more than 17 years of experience across the global high-technology industry in a variety of roles. Ms. Moyer's research coverage includes card… Read Full Bio

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Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

by Kristin Moyer  |  October 15, 2009  |  1 Comment

Bank bashing continues.  UK consumer group Which? has launched a campaign dubbed “Britain Needs Better Banks.” Which? says that three quarters of consumers they have surveyed think banks aren’t genuinely sorry for causing the financial crisis.  Which? is inviting consumers to vote for theme songs for this campaign such as “Gold Digger,” “Take the Money and Run” and “I Hate You So Much Right Now.”

To date, banks have done little to address a lack of customer trust, yet low customer trust matters and should be a big concern for banks.  What’s the next step?

In “Financial Crisis Marks the Start of New Customer Conversations,” we discussed that banks must act immediately and use every communication medium to acknowledge customers’ concerns and to deliver the message that the bank is committed to their financial stability and security.  At a minimum, banks should:

  • Commit to desirable behavior – Commit to desirable behavior, such as increased transparency with customers.
  • Communicate more, not less – It may be difficult to communicate with customers that are angry or distrustful, but a lack of communication will breed more distrust and dissatisfaction.  Banks should:
    • Provide personalized information and communication for individual lending customers and answers to questions such as:  “I’m worried about losing my job or my house. What should I do?”
    • Solicit customer feedback and act on it
    • Make it easy for  customers to complain
    • Reach out to every customer (not just the “good ones”) to tell them that you value their business and trust, and to understand if they have any concerns.

Banks should use multiple mediums to communicate:  social networking technologies (blogs, microblogs, FSNs and others), Web sites, telephone, e-mail and others.  Banks should leverage customer preferences for individual communications, which would be best accomplished through a centralized customer preference profile (see “Hype Cycle for Banking and Investment Services Customer Technologies, 2009”).

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