Online Bankers Need More Advocacy

Our research continues to show that the strongest driver of future purchase intention among banking customers is the extent to which they perceive their bank to be a customer advocate. eCommerce executives take note: Online bankers are less likely to consider their bank an advocate than offline bankers.

When we asked consumers what firms can do to demonstrate advocacy, online bankers cited nearly every one of the advocacy factors we listed as more important than offline bankers did. To demonstrate customer advocacy, online bankers expect financial firms to:

Focus on the human touch. Two of the top three most important customer advocacy factors involve employees.

Provide a convenient physical presence. Surprisingly, online bankers were nearly twice as likely as offline bankers to say that it is important for their financial providers to have branches or ATMs close by.

How can you demonstrate advocacy to these needy online bankers? Some suggestions: Offer preemptive account alerts, improve online help, and solicit customer feedback. But demonstrating customer advocacy shouldn't be limited to the secure site. Many consumers who research and apply for products online also bank online. So banks should also provide competitive rate and fee comparisons and process -- not just product -- education.

As you make plans to serve online customers, take a look at some of our other recent research that can help:

• Bank Of America's Strong Authentication Will Protect Online Customers Bank of America (BofA) is set to begin the rollout of a two-factor authentication service for its online customers. Forrester thinks that other large banks will have to follow BofA's lead and offer some form of strong authentication.

• Boosting Online Enrollment And Activation Driving higher online bill pay adoption rates isn't easy. Best practice firms have found success by using PCs in their branches to aid customer enrollment, motivating frontline employees to lead the sales effort, and offering financial incentives to spur bill pay activation.

• Which Products Should Credit Unions Highlight On Their Home Page? To make the most of their members' site visits, credit unions should feature their core products, and they should bundle investment products with deposit products to cross-sell to their members.

• Are Financial Consumers Loyal Or Lazy?

• Everything You Wanted To Know About Customer Advocacy (And Asked)

• Forrester Finance Forum Wrap Up: Hot Topics In IT

• Financial Services Email Marketing Best Practices

Research Referenced In This Issue Application Renewal Goes Mainstream (36692) Are Financial Consumers Loyal Or Lazy? (37271) Bank Of America's Strong Authentication Will Protect Online Customers (37275) Boosting Online Enrollment And Activation (37208) Demonstrating Customer Advocacy To Online Bankers (37231) Financial Services Email Marketing Best Practices (37274) Forrester Finance Forum Wrap Up: Hot Topics In IT (37284) How To Design Better Car Insurance Web Sites (36340) Media Mix To Reach Financial Firms' Customers (37267) Payment Card Security: Self-Assessment Is Not Enough (37091) The Drivers Of Future Purchase Intention (35925) The Forrester Wave: Web Conferencing, Q4 2005 (37378) Usability Flaws Of Financial Services Web Sites (37302) What The New TD Ameritrade Should Do (37345) Which Products Should Credit Unions Highlight On Their Home Page? (37243)

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