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Back during the frenetic bull market of the late 1990s, many an investor's theory behind compiling a 'balanced' portfolio was alphabetizing the names of every Silicon Valley company in which […]

Banks need to implement the leading entertainment companies' business strategies to stay competitive and provide superior customer services. Banks need to become 'integrators' of financial services to help their customers make appropriate financial decisions. Bank can stay competitive in the financial sector by presenting and marketing content, advertising quality of their products and developing consumer brand loyalty., There's no business like show business? Oh, you better believe there is. If there were ever a parallel to be drawn between the banking industry of late and any other [...]

Byline: Brad Finkelstein Success can come from taking advantage of opportunities others don't want and having the strength to do what's right even in tough times. The advantage that Chris [...]

Byline: Heather Landy Prepping his speech to fellow marketing executives this month on the topic of customer centricity, Ally Financial Inc. Chief Marketing Officer Sanjay Gupta wasn't sure where to [...]

Byline: Brad Finkelstein In the hours after he made his great escape down an airplane slide, Steven Slater became America's newest folk hero, based on the number of friends his [...]

Byline: Anthony Garritano All the news around the mortgage business has been bad. Despite the negative headlines, technology vendors are a resilient bunch. They stick it out and when they [...]

The Fallacy of Customer Retention For the past year or so, bankers have been assailed with a proposition that can best be described as a nostrum or panacea. The proposition [...]

The next time you are in a team meeting where the discussion turns to customer service issues, confidently respond, 'Within every problem lies opportunity.' Then take a quick look around [...]

While discussing customer service with banking groups, I often like to ask whether their services are 'complimentary' enough. Most initially assume that I use the word 'complimentary' to mean 'free.' [...]

Users of Credit Union 24 Inc.'s surcharge-free network of automated teller machines can now use ATMs that are part of Cardtronics Inc.'s Allpoint network. The Tallahassee, Fla., electronic funds transfer [...]

U.S. banks get high marks for customer service compared with their counterparts worldwide but are missing opportunities to appeal to wealthy clients by not differentiating their service, according to a [...]

When a client leaves, I try to contact them and do several things. First, I want to thank them for allowing us to serve them. Second, I want to assure […]

U.S. retail banks are caught in a painful growth squeeze. They're expanding into new markets, opening branches at a breakneck pace, and upgrading their ATM networks and online services, but [...]

If I asked you how an additional or redirected $25 a week per branch would have the most impact, what would your answer be? The fact is you probably couldn't [...]

It's fair to say that most high-ranking bank executives spend little time considering how their call center operation affects their institution's overall performance. That's a big mistake, because service centers [...]

In a somewhat ironic twist, traditional financial services institutions that have historically been reluctant to serve the unbanked and underbanked in America are now viewing this segment as the last [...]

The banking industry is doing a good job OF promoting Web-based approaches to customer service. The industry understands it makes economic sense to drive customers to use online customer support [...]

LAS VEGAS -- Credit unions leaders began getting some of their first details on the changes being made at CUNA Mutual when the company held its annual Discovery Conference here [...]

Observers warn that con artists who have largely shifted to the Internet to snare personal data may revert to the phone in response to the financial industry's efforts to stop [...]

MOLINE, Ill. -- E-mail will fall flat as credit union employees here jump to Instant Messaging (IM), according to Scott Zahnle, vice president, Information Technology at $510-million IH Mississippi Valley [...]

You've waited in bank lines. You've waited in stores and at the Department of Motor Vehicles. So with tax season looming, remember that waiting in line or in your reception [...]

One of the staples of channel management in financial services is migration, or the strategy of nudging consumers to less costly electronic transaction modes such as the Internet, where self-service [...]

Banks have begun introducing technology that marries the phone and Web channels by connecting online customers directly to bank representatives and letting both view the same screen together. Several permutations [...]

* The problem: CSRs for South Carolina Blues plan had difficulty retrieving customer information, and customers calling in had to repeatedly give their account IDs. * The Solution: BCBSSC developed [...]

In working with Mobius Management Systems' 30 financial clients-ABN Amro North America, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Fleet, Oppenheimer, Sallie Mae and John Hancock among them-Michael Fee, director of [...]

First Union Corp.'s acquisition of the Philadelphia-based CoreStates Financial Corp. in 1998 was an eye-opener for the Charlotte banking company now known as Wachovia Corp. While integrating CoreStates, First Union [...]

Since the early days of the Internet revolution, many prognosticators have said that this new technology would be the basis of the new economy. Online lending was no exception. Buoyed [...]

First Data Corp. says it has begun signing up its top card-issuing customers for technology that simulates the human voice. The product it is offering, Xpedite, was tested over the [...]

A bank is only as good as its people. Even the most advanced technologies will not compensate for poorly trained and poorly motivated employees. Banks have been haunted by resource [...]

Credit unions are a unique and formidable segment of the financial services industry, but that alone doesn't guarantee them a permanent position in the marketplace alongside larger, stronger and more [...]

Security Service has changed the name of its Global Telephone Center to Member Contact Center. The $2- billion CU said it made the change as the result of new services [...]

When customer service goes south, customers go elsewhere-an observation well removed from rocket science, perhaps, but one that applies in banking even more than it does in most other industries. [...]

About 18 months ago, David Daberko, the chairman and chief executive officer of National City Corp., took stock of the branch network his company had amassed in 15 years of [...]

As credit unions we often say our members are very important to us. If that's true, why don't we take the time to get to know our members better? Right [...]

You may or may not know it, but at several points in your life, you've been exposed to a relationship marketer. The neighborhood pharmacist who knew you were allergic to [...]

CitiStreet, the joint venture formed last year combining the retirement divisions of Citigroup and State Street Corp., appears to have learned the first lesson of all small business owners, which [...]

St. Louis, Mo.-based First Banks Inc. has an astounding record for recovering charged-off debt: over 90%, according to CCR sister publication, Credit Collections Directory. Arguably the largest family- owned bank [...]

With both economic and competitive pressures coming to bear on financial institutions, bankers are under the gun to wring more profits from all lines of business. That's no easy job [...]

You just called your bank's 800 number to hash out a discrepancy in your statement. Well, guess what? The person you talked to may well have been sitting in India, [...]

'We can't become what we need to be by remaining what we are.' -Oprah Winfrey I'm a former banker. While I worked at the bank, the concept of sales culture [...]

Account retention is supplanting acquisition as the goal of some phone centers as issuers worry about the economy, low response rates, a saturated market for cards, and the citizenry's growing [...]