Think Customers: The 1to1 Blog

Doyle, Forrester, and the likes of Fred Reichheld are among those who believe that financial firms that think conducting customer-satisfaction surveys is enough are fooling themselves. "Fred loves to rip into the insufficiency of customer satisfaction surveys," Doyle notes of Reichheld, who gave a presentation at Monday's session. "He said that since anonymity is a key principle of c-sat studies, you can't determine what's wrong if you can't talk one-on-one with the customer who's dissatisfied; dig into whether they're a new customer or a profitable customer, and get at the context of their problem. It's a fool's errand."

Forrester's take is that c-sat surveys are necessary but are not enough, Doyle says. "Our research led us to the belief that customer advocacy is a great indicator of future purchase intent."

It's a lesson that the likes of Fidelity, Commerce Bank, Schwab, and especially USAA have all taken to heart, he adds, while industry behemoths like Citibank and Chase "are bottom dwellers when it comes to customer advocacy. There are undoubtedly some people at those firms that stand for service excellence, but there's something in the bones of those cultures that prevents it."

Size has a lot to do with it, Doyle says. "Customer advocacy is a long-term bet, not something you can use to prop up quarterly earnings," he states. "But unless someone at the top is convinced of the virtue of growing organically by satisfying customers, those principles won't have a chance."

Doyle predicts that such behavior, if not tempered in these uneasy economic times, will catch up with offending financial firms. "Eventually, abusing customers will come home to roost."

How does your bank or brokerage do by you? And, more importantly, is there room for improvement?