A great way to drive away customers: raise your fees!(MARKETING NEWS) (Brief article) (Survey)

LET'S SAY YOUR BANK WANTS TO RAISE FEES, but you voice caution--warning that raised fees will only cause customers to switch to another bank.

MoneyRates.com recently released some survey results that might help marketers win the battle over fee increases.

The company sponsored survey of 2,000 U.S. adults, asking them what factors would be most likely to make them change banks. By an overwhelming margin, the most widespread response was "a new or raised fee" (selected by 47.7 percent).

The banking industry seems to be shooting itself in the foot on this issue since banks have been steadily increasing fees in recent year, the company says. The most recent MoneyRates.com survey on bank fees shows that the number of checking accounts with no monthly maintenance fee declined by 5 percent over the past year to...