Banking Service Marketing Mix free essay sample

BANKING SERVICE MARKETING MIX SERVICE MARKETING MIX ELEMENT The service marketing mix comprises off the 7p’s. These include: * Product * Price * Place * Promotion * People * Process * Physical evidence. PRODUCT: 1. BANK PRODUCTS (A)DEPOSITS: savings, current, fixed etc. (B)ADVANCES: (1) FUND ORIENTED: a. Term loan, b. Clean loan, c. Bill discounting, d. Advances, e. Pre-shipment finance, f. Post-shipment finance, g. Secured and unsecured lines of credit. (2) NON-FUND ORIENTED: a. Guarantees, and b. Letter of credit C) INTERNATIONAL BANKING: a. Letter of credit, and b) Foreign Currency. D) CONSULTANCY: a. Investment Counseling, b. Project Counseling, c. Merchant Banking, and d) Tax Consultancy. (E)MISCELLANEOUS: a. Traveller Cheques, b. Credit Card, c. Remittances, d. Collections, e. Sale of Draft, f. Standing instructions, and g. Trusteeship. In banking the products are services. Services cannot be seen or protected like goods. The potential buyer of the services can form an opinion about the services offered. The product should suit the market needs. We will write a custom essay sample on Banking Service Marketing Mix or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Bank services are viewed in terms of the satisfaction they deliver and not just the things that are created with value. The banks primarily deal in services and therefore, the formulation of product mix is required to be in the face of changing business environment conditions. The changing psychology, the increasing expectation, the rising income, the changing lifestyles, the increasing dominations of foreign banks and the changing needs and requirements of the customers at large make it essential that they innovate their service mix and make them of worked class. In the formulation of service mix, the banks can follow two guidelines, first is related to the processing of product to market needs and the second is concerned with the processing of market needs to product. Marketing aims not only offering but also at creating/innovating the services/schemes found new to the competitors vis -a-vis- to the customers. The additional attraction, the product attractiveness would be a plus point, which would b e of great help in many ways. Thus, the formulation of product mix is found to be difficult task that requires world-class professionalism. PRICE: Pricing in banking relates to the interest rates paid by the bankers on deposits, interest charged by the banker on loans and demand draft, charges for various types of transactions and fees for certain services. In India deposit and lending rates are prescribed by RBI. Pricing policy of a bank is considered important for raising the number of actual customer. In the formulation of marketing mix, the pricing decisions occupy a place of outstanding significance. The pricing decision include the decisions related to interest and fee or commission charged by bank. Keeping in view the level of satisfaction of a particular segment, the bank have to frame the pricing strategies. The banks are required to frame two-fold strategies. Strategies concerned with interest and commissions to be paid to the customer and interest and commissions to be paid by the customers for different types of services PLACE: The place decision mainly deals with selection of a suitable location for the branch. Sound location decisions help in activating the business. The location should have adequate availability of transportation, communication, electricity and other necessary facilities for the smooth functioning of the banks. Technological development, increased customer satisfaction, inadequacy of the traditional challenge to serve all customer segments have brought about ATM, telebanking, home banking, Internet banking and now SMS Banking. Another significant development is a strategic alliance set up by the private banks to overcome the handicap of limited branch network. In such alliance the branch network of one branch will be used by the other for selected transaction like bill collection, cheque collection, etc. PROMOTION: The object of a promotion programme are to inform about the new service product, to persuade the customer, to remind the customer, build image of the bank, etc. Banking services can be promoted in two ways: 1. Personal Promotion: The bank marketer gets opportunity to tangibilise the product through personal selling; persuasion is more effective with direct contact. It helps in creating impulse buying. 2. Impersonal Promotion: i. e. Advertising, Publicity and Sales Promotion measures. An advertisement in banking is a promotion measures. An advertisement in banking is a promise- a promise of satisfaction to prospectus who buy the service offered by the bank. Banks use all types of advertisement such as n ewspaper, radio, television, magazines and hoardings. Also, sales promotion device such as Point of Purchase material, brochures and advertisement specialties like ball pens, calendars, diaries, etc. Publicity is a major strength as a promotion tool than advertising as customers tend to believe a news item rather than an advertisement. Word of promotion is yet another important promotion tool as it is a better persuader and convincer than advertising and personal selling, as banking services are narrated by customer themselves. Besides, as Social welfare and Corporate Social Responsibility are considered to be an important part of banking services, the publicity measures need due care. PEOPLE: Banking products cannot be separated from the person (banker) who markets them. The product and the seller together constitute the banking product. Banks should adopt internal marketing in order to make the whole business customer-oriented. The bank products should be marketed to the employees first before they are marketed to customer. The corporate mission should be communicated repeatedly and effectively to all employees by the top management. The placement policy should emphasize that the recruits should not only be conversant with all aspects of banking businesses but also have the skill for social interaction and tolerance for interpersonal contact. The quality for banking sector is an aggregation of all the properties, which are found essential for satisfaction to prospectus who buy the service offered by the bank. Banks use all types of advertisement such as n ewspaper, radio, television, magazines and hoardings. Also, sales promotion device such as Point of Purchase material, brochures and advertisement specialties like ball pens, calendars, diaries, etc. Publicity is a major strength as a promotion tool than advertising as customers tend to believe a news item rather than an advertisement. Word of promotion is yet another important promotion tool as it is a better persuader and convincer than advertising and personal selling, as banking services are narrated by customer themselves. Besides, as Social welfare and Corporate Social Responsibility are considered to be an important part of banking services, the publicity measures need due care. PEOPLE: Banking products cannot be separated from the person (banker) who markets them. The product and the seller together constitute the banking product. Banks should adopt internal marketing in order to make the whole business customer-oriented. The bank products should be marketed to the employees first before they are marketed to customer. The corporate mission should be communicated repeatedly and effectively to all employees by the top management. The placement policy should emphasize that the recruits should not only be conversant with all aspects of banking businesses but also have the skill for social interaction and tolerance for interpersonal contact. The quality for banking sector is an aggregation of all the properties, which are found essential for generating the efficiency and projecting a fair image. Even efficiency essentially is supported by ethical dimension, humanity and humanism. The development of human resources makes the way for the formation of human capital. Human resource can be developed through education, training and by psychological tests. Even incentives can inject efficiency and can motivate people for productive and qualitative work. PROCESS: It involves all activities right from the product conception stage, to product designing and development down to its marketing at the branch level. Flow of activities: all the major activities of banks follow RBI guidelines. There has to be adherence to certain rules and principles in the banking operations. The activities have been segregated into various departments accordingly. a) Standardization: banks have got standardized procedures got typical transactions. In fact not only all the branches of a single- bank, but all the banks have some standardization in them. This is because of the rules they are subject to. Besides this, each of the banks has its standard forms, documentations etc. Standardization saves a lot of time behind individual transaction. b) Customization: There are specialty counters at each branch to deal with customers of a particular scheme. Besides this the customers can select their deposit period among the available alternatives. Number of stores: numbers of the steps are usually specified and a specific pattern is followed to minimize time taken. Simplicity: in banks various functions are segregated. Separate counters exist with clear indication. Thus a customer wanting to deposit money goes to deposits counter and does not mingle elsewhere. This makes procedures not only simple but consume less time. Besides instruction boards in national boards in national and regional language help the customers further. Customer involvement: ATM does not involve any bank employees. Besides, during usual bank transactions, there is definite customer involvement at some or the other place because of the money matters and signature requires. PHYSICAL EVIDENCE: The physical evidences include signage, reports, punch lines, other tangibles, employees dress code etc. The companys financial reports are issued to the customers to emphasis or credibility. Even some of the banks follow a dress code for their internal customers. This helps the customers to feel the ease and comfort. Signage: each and every bank has its logo by which a person can identify the company. Thus such signages are significant for creating visualization and corporate identity . Tangibles: banks give pens, writing pads to the internal customers. Even the passbooks, chequebooks, etc reduce the inherent Intangibility of services.