The role of customer-contact personnel in the marketing of a retail bank's services

Examines the role and importance of customer-contact personnel in the marketing of a bank's financial services and the importance of customer service in retail banking. Customer-contact personnel from suburban branches of an Australian retail bank identified their level of agreement with statements dealing with customer purchase perceptions, customer purchase behaviour, the personal selling of services and their role and importance in the marketing of the bank's financial services. The results were interesting in that they indicated several key factors that affected service purchase encounters. These factors included the organization's reputation, the role of the customer-contact personnel in the service encounter, level of reward given to the customer-contact personnel for their contribution, the significance of an official sales training programme, word-of-mouth communication and the relationship between the salesperson and the customer.