Personalized financial advice has emerged as the key to a meaningful bank customer experience at a time when less than half of American retail bank customers are considered financially healthy, J.D. Power reported this week.
J.D. Power measures the financial health of consumers as a metric that combines their spending/savings ratio, creditworthiness and safety net items such as insurance coverage, and places them on a continuum from healthy to vulnerable.
Even though financial advice resonates more than ever with retail bank customers, only 42% of those in the study recalled having received financial advice from their bank. Among customers younger than 40, the average recall rate for financial advice jumped to 60%.
Seventy-six percent of customers who received financial advice reported taking action. Most frequently, they updated account settings, shifted money between accounts and downloaded their bank's mobile app.
Overall satisfaction with retail banking advice increases 163 points (on a 1,000-point scale) when customers act based on specific advice provided by their bank, according to the study.
"Customers who act on the financial advice and guidance provided by their bank are getting not only help on how to save time or money, but also these services result in increased satisfaction and strong engagement and brand advocacy," Jennifer White, senior director for banking and payments intelligence at J.D. Power, said in a statement.
