People used to trust banks, banks didn’t trust customers. The power has shifted due to the financial crisis and people no longer trust banks. Banks need customers more than ever; they have to fight harder for their market share in current environment. The first bank to cross the trust chasm will gain a sustainable competitive advantage. Banks need to modify their language and start commnuciting their value in order to rebuild trust. Ehtnnographic research can help define this language.
Why is trust important?
Financial services are unique. It’s is mainly because of the time factor. If we put day-to-day banking operations aside for a moment, it becomes clear that the core financial services are usually long term e.g. investment, savings or loan/mortgage products. They’re more like relationships than services, and, like in a relationship, trust is the key element those services are built on. Trust is crucial because when customers feel they are being looked after by experts, if the service is provided in a professional, sensitive and confidential manner, there’s a higher chance that they will continue their relationship with the provider and won’t switch to another one.
Trust, however, is a subtle thing. Some people give others the credit of trust at the beginning of the relationship, some gradually build trust over the years; sometimes trust needs to be rebuilt. In the financial sector trust is interlinked with service.
How to create that sense of trust?
From an ethnographer’s perspective answering ‘the trust question’ would be a start of the customer journey. It is because customers’ expectations (in respect of whom and why they can trust) have started to form up long before he or she went through a financial services provider’s door. Definition of trust is built on individual’s lifelong experience. It’s a combination of elements coming from a number of sources e.g. family, culture in which we were brought up, values we respect. Through their research tools ethnographers can find out what those expectations are and how they can be fulfilled.
Some ideas of how to approach this issue in research practice would include:
- Listening to customers’ stories in order to find out what they associate with trust – are the associations tangible or maybe behavioral; how could they be potentially modified?
- Watching customers interacting with provider’s staff members, space and objects to see how they handle providing information, asking for advice and how they behave when talking about financial matters;
- Asking customers to describe a professional institution which they consider trustworthy and then comparing it to the existing model of provider’s firm.
Aga-
Interesting observations, . . . But we need to also examine the full environment of trust in this relationship which includes two other factors; Brand and Activity.
When considered on a 3-axis matrix, we need to look for intersections at many levels. Do the activities at our local level of the relationship reflect the same qualities of the brand and the activities of the brand’s leadership? And do those qualities translate well down to the local level?
Stability within the structure implies activities on all levels, personal, local and global be consistent. If the brand does not reflect the reality of the experience, we’re left with doubt, . . and we go to another bank. Or the qualities at the global and local level are reinforced by our experience at the personal level, and we feel comfortable enough to begin building trust in the interactions with our faith.
It’s an interesting equation. How many other factors are involved? And how can the personal experience be reinforced to accommodate shifts in the other two?
I like your approach-
-Dale