Loyalty Falling for Banks and Insurance Companies

A recent survey of 500 consumers across the US and UK by Thunderhead, a provider of enterprise solutions, indicates some very disturbing statistics.

For example:
1. 61 percent of consumers are actively considering "switching" insurance providers in the next twelve months.
2. 63 percent of consumers are actively considering "switching" banks in the next twelve months.
3. 26 percent of overall respondents said they felt their current bank or insurance company sent them"personalized" communications that were relevant to their needs.
4. 17 percent of consumers feel a sense of loyalty to their insurance provider
5. 16 percent of consumers feel a sense of loyalty to their bank
6. 50 percent of consumers said that receiving communications in real-time was very important to them
7. 76 percent said they would like the option to receive communications via email
8. 40 percent preferred the option of having relevant, timely information delivered to them via personalized web portals
9. 50 percent wanted to continue to receive communications from their bank or insurance company via snail mail.

There is definitely a sense of bias in this survey since it was performed by a company that sells enterprise solutions (another way of saying they will provide a company with ways to communicate with their customers. A survey of 500 consumers from the US and the UK may not be representative of the two countries. It is not clear whether or not communication is what is causing the low levels of loyalty. There may be little or no correlation between communication satisfaction and company loyalty. This can happen when a survey has multiple metrics. It can be that the factors are related but the key is to remember a statistical relationship does not necessarily imply cause and effect.

Nevertheless, there is a strong message here that says banks and insurance companies don't seem to have very high levels of loyalty. Loyalty of 16 percent for banks and 17 percent for insurance companies is worse than the automobile industry in the US.

The bottom line is that banks and insurance companies are spending a great deal of time and money to improve loyalty but according to this survey it doesn't appear to be working very well.