ABA/BMA Survey Shows Big Increase in Use of Bank Telemarketing.

• Author: Albro, Walt

Banks have increased sharply their use of telemarketing-both inbound and outbound-in recent years. And, they seem to be obtaining results from the growth, according to the recently released ABA/BMA "Bank Marketing Survey Report--2000."

In some categories of bank size, the use of call centers (inbound telemarketing) has doubled since 1987. Among banks in the asset size of $500 million to $1 billion, for example, use jumped to nearly 57 percent of those surveyed, compared to about 18 percent in 1987. Overall, 26 percent of financial services institutions now use outbound consumer telemarketing, and 31 percent use call centers.

The statistics are based on the responses of 376 U.S. banks of all sizes and locations that participated in the survey between March and July 2000. Banks were asked a total of 41 questions dealing with advertising, public relations, sales promotion, staff sales/customer relations training and marketing research. Prior to the year 2000, the marketing survey had been conducted annually since 1982 by the Bank Marketing Association. Its original title was "Analysis of Banking Marketing Expenditures." Last year, for the first time, the study was conducted jointly by BMA and ABA.

The year 2000 survey showed that banks have positive feelings about telemarketing. Nearly 15 percent reported that they increased the use of call centers in 1999, compared with less than 1 percent, who reported decreased use. Nearly 13 percent of respondents said they had increased the use of outbound telemarketing in 1999, compared with less than 2 percent who said the opposite.

Although there has been an explosion in the use of call centers, their presence is still closely tied to the bank's asset size, the report said. Of the banks in the $50 million to $100-million asset size, only 18 percent said they maintained a call...