Retail banking

Issue:

We were commissioned by an international investment company to undertake research in five Europe, Africa & Middle Eastan markets assessing:

• The emotional and rational decision–making process
• How the market is defined and perceived by personal customers and how key players are differentiated
• The future brand essence of our client
• How our client could build on their current position and gain greater penetration in the Europe, Africa & Middle Eastan market

Action:

An integrated qualitative approach was adopted, canvassing the views of both investors and financial advisors.

Ten interactive and open workshop sessions with current and potential customers were designed to address:

• Individual characteristic traits and the overall market dynamics
• How passivity can be turned into activity
• What the core investor needs were for each market and each product
• Awareness of brands and what they stand for
• How to match investor needs to desired values

Sixteen advisor depth interviews identified:

• How they communicate the benefits of specific products and brands to customers
• Where they feel the market is changing
• The values they consider important and where improvements need to be made to our client's brand to generate 'noise' in the market
• The research enabled our client to develop a strategy that conveys their offering of customer empowerment, business knowledge, flexibility, trust and information capabilities in exactly the right proportions.

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Retail banking

Issue:

A large US regional retail bank sought to measure customer satisfaction within its branches.

Action:

18,000 telephone interviews per month were conducted with customers who had recently visited one of 1,200 branches. Extensive reporting was produced for each branch and for other categories (eg district, state, across all branches), on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis. Online reporting allowed the user to create customised reports that compared their branch's results to other benchmarks, such as their district or state average.

Each report utilised the results of a driver analysis in order to prioritise improvement efforts. Synovate worked with the bank to generate strategies for the branches to address each key driver and these strategies were incorporated into the reports. An overall bank–level summary report was also produced, which was more strategic in nature and summarised the findings across the entire bank.

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