Potential Customer Study in Finance

Brand 1 is launching new checking products into market.  In order to give these new products the best chance to succeed, it is important to understand what features and benefits are most important to potential customers and how they stack up against competitive products that are on the market today.

As seen previously, Brand1’s new product features and benefits conform with what potential customers have stated are important to them when considering a checking account.  Thus it is not surprising that Brand 1’s new products outperform the top competitors products by wide margins.

• Brand 1’s no fees, no minimum deposit and more benefits enticed nearly 8 out of 10 respondents to rank it the most appealing among entry level checking accounts.  Brand 5 and Brand 6, who both impose a monthly fee were the least appealing among competitors.
• Brand 1 is much closer to its competitors when comparing premium checking products with no statistical difference between the bank and Brand 6 among #1 rankings.  However nearly two out of three of potential customers ranked Brand 1’s premium checking product either 1st or 2nd 
• Brand 1’s greater breadth of features and benefits along with no fees propelled it to statistical advantages over all competitors on student checking products.  

We have seen that Brand 1’s checking products feature benefits that fit with what potential customers feel is important and they compare favorably with the competition.  However, is Brand 1 offering too many benefits and incurring unnecessary expense?  Could the bank see relatively the same competitive advantage by excluding some benefits? The following are some suggested modifications:

• Thinking about Brand 1’s Entry/Student checking product, the one benefit that seems to be a strong candidate for exclusion is the .25% off of loans and lines of credit.  This scored well below average on importance and looks to be an expense the bank does not need to take on for this product to succeed.
• On the Premium checking side, a unique benefit like 24 Hour Grace (a high scorer on importance) looks to be enough to offset the exclusion of low importance scorers like Free Money Market, $250 off mortgage closing, and .25% off of loans and lines of credit.