Think Customers: The 1to1 Blog

I was in my local bank last week and practically gift-wrapped a marketing trigger. I was there to request a certified check and told the teller the attorney's name I wanted to make it out to, to be put in escrow. Unsurprisingly, she asked "are you buying a home?" Since the check was for a deposit on a new house, I answered yes and she congratulated me, asked a few other questions about where it was and when I close, and went about preparing the check.

I expected her to say something like "have you applied for a mortgage?" but instead she simply said goodbye and I was on my way. I was a little surprised, since we've written about banks being at the forefront of life stage marketing. I've had a checking and savings account with the bank for about 7 years and I've been a good customer (this isn't a local credit union or anything, it's one of the large bail-out recipients), so I expected to be upsold on a mortgage. At the very least, I expected a letter, call, or email soon after following up to see if I needed one. None came.

I've spoken with vendors that claim they can detect a person's likelihood to be a homebuyer just from their purchasing habits and account balances. It didn't take expensive algorithms to detect my intentions. I don't know if I would have jumped at signing up for a mortgage, but I couldn't have been a more qualified lead. Maybe the teller was just having a bad day, or maybe the banks really don't want to lend any money and are discouraging mortgage sales. Whatever the reason, this was a missed opportunity that shouldn't happen.