Innovating Customer Service: Retail Banking’s New Frontier

Strategy+Business from Wharton has an article titled "Innovating Customer Service: Retail Banking’s New Frontier" (PDF). From the abstract: "Banking lags far behind most other consumer retail industries in developing leading-edge products and services, but the industry's rush of consolidation is ratcheting up the competitive ferocity. By federal law, no bank may hold more than 10 percent of the total U.S. deposits, and many of the top 20 banks are closing in on that limit, which means that growth by acquiring new customers will no longer be feasible. Instead, banks will have to grow by strengthening relationships with their current customers, and to do that banks will have to innovate their offerings." I particularly enjoyed this quote from the article: "People put up with lousy service because the switching costs are high.”