Governance, Risk & Compliance

Governance, Risk & Compliance

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May 09, 2012

Trust is Important to Financial Services Now More than Ever, Says Cint



Market intelligence provider Cint recently brought new market insights to the table, with a dose of common sense most don’t realize. Specifically, people are turning more to financial service providers they trust, and if anything ever happens to make people distrust a financial service provider, they don't get used.

People are also extremely sensitive these days in terms of which providers they trust, and which they don't.

Recent occurrences in the economy – a disaster in the housing market, protracted recession, a recovery described as anemic at best and largely philosophical at worst and so on – have combined to yield a customer base that is watching financial service providers like a hawk. That customer base's extreme vigilance is causing them to analyze virtually every decision financial service providers make, according to research from Cint, and if anything registers in their mind as the least bit problematic, they simply won't use that provider.

The ongoing problems in the housing market, which some say may only get worse, are an especially large problem for financial service providers. Current and potential customers aren't in the mood to deal with a company seen as actively throwing families out of their homes over mortgages, and this has turned companies to using tools like Cint's Cint Engage, which allows users to create their own research panels and provides further information about various market segments before launching marketing campaigns.

This kind of information can allow a company to ascertain potential pitfalls of advertising and marketing in terms of public perception, which is important for retaining current customers and attracting new ones. If public perception sees a financial service provider negatively – easy to do in times of increased mortgage foreclosures – those same providers can in turn tailor their advertising and marketing efforts to show the good they're doing in the community, and help deflect negative press.

Moreover, companies can not only use these tools to survey how their current customers feel about things, but see how potential customers feel and tailor their advertising accordingly. If most current customers believe themselves well-served in a particular area, nothing perks up advertising like statistics that say so: a line like "98 percent of Our Bank customers just can't get enough of our online banking services" plays very well indeed, especially if the research also shows customers want good, safe online banking.

So while the financial services sector is likely to be plagued by bad public perception for some time to come, having access to market intelligence tools like those of Cint's should help these businesses fend off the lion's share of issues resulting from said perception and help keep their own businesses from going under.




Edited by Braden Becker
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