Features of Financial Services and Conditions for Effective Entrepreneurial Marketing
Products of the financial services industry are intangible and therefore cannot decay, deteriorate, depreciate or form.
Financial services cannot be inventoried just as physical goods can.
Prices of financial services are more often than not controlled or fixed by political authorities e.g. credit ceilings pegging of interest rates, exchange rates, and CBN tariff for banks changes.
Financial services marketing is highly personal or face-to-face.
In the financial services sector, customer satisfaction is paramount.
Attracting deposits, and marketing financial services, especially in banks is unique because of the involvement of marketing, only in the provisions of funds to customers, but also in the procurement or mobilization of deposits on which most of the services will be based.
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Confidentiality and Honestly. More than any other financial service, banking requires and customers expect a high degree of confidentiality and honesty on the part of the bank.
Conditions for Effective Entrepreneurial Marketing
The conditions necessary for effective Entrepreneurial Marketing are:
1. A high-level of Literacy rate
Banking transactions demand the possession of a certain tolerable level of literacy by the customer.
An illiterate customer cannot fill out bank vouchers, nor can her/she understand when one fills on him/her behalf. The higher the level of literacy coupled with purchasing power, the higher the use of banking services, all other things considered.
2. A fairly good banking habit
This is implied in the first condition because banking habit is usually formed when people are capable of reading and knowing the services available from banks.
3. Existence of good legal or statutory stipulations
The good banking law and regulatory measures designed to ensure healthy competition, a level playing field, opportunities for innovation, entry, and exit, etc. promote effective marketing of banking services.
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4. Availability of varied banking services
There must be on the und enough and varied banking services designed to cater to the various needs of customers, and these must be at prices or charges affordable to the various categories of bank customers.
Prohibitive charges will scare customers or compel them to switch their patronage to banks that have moderate charges.
5. Enhancement of quality services
This is about the most effective condition of effective bank marketing. Quality service can be defined as technical or professional terms that are how the services are rendered (the physical/human dimension). Professionally, quality services in banking must meet three basic requirements, namely:
- Competence – i.e. knowing one’s job well
- Reliability – i.e. the banker’s word should be his/her bond
- Credibility – i.e. the banker should not make claims of what he/she cannot offer customers
In summary, services have been defined as any act or performance that one party can offer to another that is essentially and does not result in the ownership of anything. Services are characterized by intangibility, heterogeneity, inseparability, and perishability.
Financial institutions are economic decision units established for providing financial services to their target markets with the main objective of making adequate returns or profits on the funds invested and being socially responsible to society.
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