Customer Advocacy 2014: How US Consumers Rate Their Financial Institutions

The traditional competitive barriers in retail financial services are crumbling. Digital touchpoints render branch distribution strength impotent. Digital technologies are cheaper and easier to deploy than legacy IT. The only sustainable competitive advantage left is an obsession with customers, and the key to growth is customer loyalty. Our research shows that the key driver of loyalty in retail financial services is customer advocacy — the perception on the part of customers that a firm does what's best for them, not just what's best for the firm's own bottom line. eBusiness professionals will play a critical role in evangelizing and responding to this imperative because they understand the dynamics of this new age of the customer better than other roles in the firm.