What is good service?

Some will tell you that good service is greeting each customer with a friendly “hello” when they walk into a branch; some will tell you that good service is answering a customer’s questions; others will tell you that good service is service with a smile. While these all may be considered aspects of “good service” – they certainly will not give you a competitive advantage among today’s aggressive financial institutions.

In order to use service as a differentiator, it must actually be a different, and better, level of service than that offered by your competition. Furthermore, the service must be clearly defined and it must be communicated at all levels within your institution; the service must be noticeably different from that of the competition and must be considered valuable in the eyes of the customer.

Consider an article in the December 4th issue of the Chicago Tribune titled “Community banks find niche.” The article highlights Barrington Bank & Trust Company’s efforts to differentiate itself based on a high level of service targeting physicians with a program called Physicians Financial Care. As the article states: “Its Physicians’ Financial Care program, launched Nov. 15, aims to provide comprehensive financial services for doctors, helping them plan for all stages of their careers and run their practices…From eliminating medical school debt to running a practice and planning for retirement, the bank’s program aims to give physicians information and tools to make sound financial decisions.”

This is a great example of a community bank identifying and targeting an underserved niche with a specific service that is indeed different from the services offered by the competition. This is the type of differentiation we are talking about when we say, “In order to differentiate yourself, you must be different – truly different.”