Marketing in Financial Services

Marketing in Financial Services Name: Institution: Marketing in Financial Services Executive Summary Technological advancement, through the invention of information technology, has greatly improved banking services nowadays. This improvement has come in existence due to pressure and demands from customers towards realization of better and quality service delivery. Hence, most organizations, through their respective managements, have come up with various approaches in ensuring quality services to customers. One of the approaches contained in this document towards determining quality of services by most organization is the SERVQUAL technique. SERVQUAL method is considered as the best method because it provides accurate measures that make it easy for organizations to know and improve on their service quality. It is also important to note that through the use of SERVQUAL as a method of quality service determination, some of the factors such as reliability should be considered as they form strong basis towards better service quality. On the other hand, despite various importance of SERVQUAL method approach, the approach also has some demerits mainly because it is based on the information provided by organization client. Therefore, when false information is provided, inappropriate decision may be made, resulting to poor relation and production. Additionally, organizations should make use of technological advancement in improving their productions and service quality. For instance, they should ensure they use latest machinery and transaction procedures that would facilitate faster and accurate customers banking transaction. This will make organizations to provide better and quality services to their clients, which helps in attracting and maintain customers. Introduction Marketing, which is the process of conveying relevant information concerning products and services that are produced by an organization, is an important process as it creates products and services awareness to organizational customers. In order for product information to be effectively passed to clients, organization must ensure proper external communication, which allows them to provide necessary information to customers. Various methods of advertisement approaches are available for organizations to use in conveying product awareness to their clients. Some of the commonly used include media such as advertising through televisions and radios, through internet services like developing of organization that customers can access organizational information and having customers` care centers where customers can seek any information about products and services produce by an organization. Similarly, organizations must ensure they have in place proper measures of monitoring their performance towards satisfaction of their client demands. Therefore, this paper provides information based on e-SERVQUAL techniques by describing e-SERVQUAL methods. It also provides various importance and demerits of financial services organization that depends on e-SERVQUAL methods to measure their service quality (Gannage 2009, p.14). Furthermore, the last part of this document provide ways in which Financial Service Organization are addressing their client services in relation to issues that exist through technological advancement and conclusion on the use of e-SERVQUAL techniques. Part I e-SERVQUAL Methods According to Gannage (2009, p.12), in the process of measuring organization service quality to clients, it is advisable for organizational management to consider various factors. For instance, they should mull over client expectations and perceptions on the kind of services that the organization offers. With a contrary opinion, Rodriques (2013, p.19) believes that there exist no proper agreement on the process of determining quality of services that are offered by an organization. Therefore, for proper determination of service quality of an organization to clients, one of the best approachs to depend on is the use of SERVQUAL models that were developed by Parasuraman (Gannage 2009, p.25). Likewise, Yu (2008, p.30) also supported the use of SERVQUAL technique in measuring service quality of an organization because it helps companies to conduct a comparison of their client expectation prior to the final process of products and service delivery. Thus, SERVQUAL approach is considered as the most appropriate method that organization should adopt in knowing their clients take on the products and services of an organization. As provided by Gannage (2009, p.56), SERVQUAL is composed of approximately five basic factors that the process can operate under towards determining service quality of organizational services. The immediate factor to be considered is the tangibles of the organization. This factor is based on the available equipment of the organization, physical facilities that exist within the organization and lastly the personnel appearance and their participations in managing the organization. Apart from the tangibles factors, reliability is another factor that needs to be considered as far as SERVQUAL method is concern. This factor depends on the objectives and plans of the organization towards better service delivery based on the accuracy, productivity and timely in production and service delivery. Hence, for SERVQUAL to be effective, an organization must revisit their organizational mission and values towards products and service delivery to clients as explained by Yu (2008, p.34). The third factor according to (Rodriques 2013, p.45), is responsiveness. This refers to the willingness of the organization in helping clients through provision of adequate information needed by organization customers relating to products and services offered. Additionally, responsiveness factor also touches on the ability of the organization to provide timely services to customers. Provision of timely services may be achieved through locating of service delivery branches of the organization to strategic locations that for easy access of these products and services by the clients as proposed by (Gannage 2009, p.78). Another important factor that organizations must consider when using SERVQUAL technique in knowing quality of their service provision is assurance to clients on production and service delivery. Assurance, therefore, depends on both internal and external factors. For instance, an organization must understand its workers perception towards better production based on their ability towards timely and quality production so as to give a surety to their customers on better production and service delivery (Yu 2008, p40). Failure of the organization to know their employees determination towards better production may make it impossible for companies to promise their clients on better production as it may affect the relationship between customers and organization in case of poor provision of services. Other areas that go in hand with the factor of assurance include credibility of the services provided by an organization, competency within the organization as far as service delivery is concerned, security and courtesy (Rodriques 2013, p.31). Moreover, the last factor that organizations should consider is the empathy. This factor covers three main areas, namely; communication, access to products, service, and better understanding organization clients. On the issues of communication, organization must ensure they provide relevant information on products and services offered. Equally, they need to develop appropriate measures that are used in gathering information from their clients on the products and services offered in order to know and understand customers` take on the products and services. The information from clients is important as it help organization in making decisions on how to improve their services. In addition, organizations must consider customer` access of the services that they offer so as to know some of the obstacles that hinders better delivery of the produ...