Let's get personal.

• Author: Williams, Stephenie
• Position: Customer-centric approach

ONE SENSIBLE MARKETING APPROACH economic and regulatory landscap is called "customer intimacy." Customer intimacy is achieved by fostering close, trusting relationships with customers throughout the relationship life-cycle. It requires developing a deeper understanding of each customer's needs and using this knowledge to offer solutions based on individual preferences and life circumstances.

At a recent banking conference, bankers were asked by show of hands if they had a comprehensive on-boarding outreach program Only about 20 percent responded that they had such a program. Of that 20 percent/only a. quarter (5 percent of the total) used multichannel options to reach customers. So why aren't more banks taking advantage of opportunities like this to engage and build relationships with account holders? Perhaps these numbers are low because many community and regional banks are reluctant to try such initiatives--assuming that any new marketing approach involving customer intimacy entails a costly bells-and-whistles program that will require a bevy of resources and an entire project team to execute.

Such reservations are unfounded because customer intimacy is not a flashy and expensive marketing campaign. Rather, it is a gradual, long-term shift in organizational mindset. Moreover, it can be undertaken slowly, with a few relatively easy steps and small changes to what your institution may already be doing. Customer intimacy is a process, a journey. And what's more, any bank can embark upon this journey, regardless of size.

The payoff to this approach is that the bank greatly deepens customer rapport. Customers are more likely to purchase products and increase their account balances when a bank's offers are more relevant to their needs and delivered via the channels they prefer. As a result, banks benefit from a boost in customer response rates, as well as reduced attrition and expenses.

Begin with three easy steps

While plenty of influential marketers these days speak of building customer advocacy or of taking a customer-centric approach, the concept of customer intimacy has been around for a while, coined two decades ago by management consultants Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema. Their Harvard Business Review article, "Customer Intimacy and Other Value Disciplines" maintained that companies become leaders in their industries by narrowing their focus to one of three value disciplines, one of which is customer intimacy. (The other two are...