Know thy bank's 'killer attributes'.

• Author: Motley, L. Biff
• Position: Customer Satisfaction - Brief Article

The 2001 Christmas selling season was pretty low-key, given the state of the economy and the American psyche following September 11. However, one interesting factoid did emerge from the sea of post-mortem analyses. While overall retail sales were slow compared with last Christmas, Web shopping was up 37 percent to $6.3 billion, compared with Christmas 2000 sales of $4.6 billion, according to BizRate.com, a Los Angeles-based marketing firm. While many of those silly dotcom companies have faded away, mainstream retailers are now fully exploiting the advantages of the Internet to drive incremental growth.

Identify your bank's 'killer attributes'

The key categories of online shopping that are enjoying the greatest success and growth are gifts, flowers, electronics and books. As this growth continues, analysts such as the net-savvy experts at NetRatings Inc. are cataloging the characteristics, or attributes, of Web shopping that separate the best from the rest. From a consumers viewpoint there are many advantages to buying on the Web: product selection, price, ease of comparison, time saving and so forth. But the 'killer attribute" among all these is the ability of the Web-based e-tailer to deliver the product to the correct address when promised every time, period.

Think back to your Retailing 101 courses where you learned about the essential "time" and "place" utility of retailing. While the Internet has changed many shopping protocols, it has not changed the basic nature of the business--to provide what people want, when and where they want it.

The winning e-tailers last Christmas were not the dot-coin start-ups, but great names like L.L. Bean, Circuit City, Best Buy, Tower Records and other traditional retailers who applied the basics of their successful business model to their online stores.

One of the most critical things marketers can do is develop an understanding of their banks' "killer attributes." That is, what are the top two or three things your customers expect you to do every...