Thank you for an interesting article relating to the Barclaycard Freedom scheme Case Study (July/August). The scope of this innovation is to be applauded as a differentiator for Barclaycard, as it fights to maintain its market leadership in a crowded sector.
However, this highly customer-focused approach flies in the face of the
bigger picture.
Current credit card marketing approaches seems to put the acquisition of new customers significantly ahead of the retention of existing customers in a manner very reminiscent of the excellent Nationwide “Sorry, new customers only” ad campaign.
It’s a common customer experience that if you contact a bank call centre there are seemingly no managers or supervisors available to speak to, no one returns calls when promised, and when you finally ask to cancel a card in exasperation the approach is simply “OK”.
Writing as a marketer working in the B2B sector, I would be horrified if we were bleeding longstanding accounts with no effort made to discover why people were seeking to leave after being loyal customers for so long.
Surely there is something to be said for old fashioned customer retention, rather than an almost exclusive focus on new customer recruitment. After all, where are your competitors hoping to recruit their new customers from?
to magazine
