Marketing of Services in Bank and Insurance

(1) Product

A product means what we produce. If we produce goods, it means tangible product and when we produce or generate services, it means intangible service product. A product is both what a seller has to sell and a buyer has to buy. Thus, an Insurance company sells services and therefore services are their product. In India, the Life Insurance Corporation of

India (LIC) and the General Insurance Corporation (GIC) are the two leading companies offering insurance services to the users. Apart from offering life Insurance policies, they also offer underwriting and consulting services.

(2) Pricing

With a view of influencing the target market or prospects the formulation of pricing strategy becomes significant. The pricing in insurance is in the form of premium rates. The three main factors used for determining the premium rates under a life insurance plan are mortality, expense and interest. The premium rates are revised if there are any significant changes in any of these factors.

  • Mortality (deaths in a particular area) When deciding upon the pricing strategy the average rate of mortality is one of the main considerations. In a country like South Africa the threat to life is very important as it is played by host of diseases.
  • Expenses: The cost of processing, commission to agents, reinsurance companies as well as registration are all incorporated into the cost of installments and premium sum and forms the integral part of the pricing strategy.
  • Interest: The rate of interest is one of the major factors which determines people’s willingness to invest in insurance. People would not be willing to put their funds to invest in insurance business if the interest rates provided by the banks or other financial instruments are much greater than the perceived returns from the insurance premiums.

(3) Place

This component of the marketing mix is related to two important facets

i) Managing the insurance personnel, and

ii) Locating a branch.

The management of agents and insurance personnel is found significant with the viewpoint of maintaining the norms for offering the services. This is also to process the services to the end user in such a way that a gap between the services- promised and services offered is bridged over. In a majority of the service generating organizations, such a gap is found existent which has been instrumental in making worse the image problem. The transformation of potential policyholders to the actual policyholders is a difficult task that depends upon the professional excellence of the personnel. The agents and the rural career agents acting as a link, lack professionalism.

(4) Promotion:

The insurance services depend on effective promotional measures. In a country like

India, the rate of illiteracy is very high and the rural economy has dominance in the national economy. It is essential to have both personal and impersonal promotion strategies. In promoting insurance business, the agents and the rural career agents play an important role.

Due attention should be given in selecting the promotional tools for agents and rural career agents and even for the branch managers and front line staff. They also have to be given proper training in order to create impulse buying. Advertising and Publicity, organization of conferences and seminars, incentive to policyholders are impersonal communication.

Arranging Kirtans, exhibitions, participation in fairs and festivals, rural wall paintings and publicity drive through the mobile publicity van units would be effective in creating the impulse buying and the rural prospects would be easily transformed into actual policyholders.

(5) People

Understanding the customer better allows to design appropriate products. Being a service industry which involves a high level of people interaction, it is very important to use this resource efficiently in order to satisfy customers. Training, development and strong relationships with intermediaries are the key areas to be kept under consideration. Training the employees, use of IT for efficiency, both at the staff and agent level, is one of the important areas to look into. Human resources can be developed through education, training and by psychological tests. Even incentives can inject efficiency and can motivate people for productive and qualitative work.

(6) Process:

The process should be customer friendly in insurance industry. The speed and accuracy of payment is of great importance. The processing method should be easy and convenient to the customers. Installment schemes should be streamlined to cater to the ever growing demands of the customers. IT & Data Warehousing will smoothen the process flow.

IT will help in servicing large no. of customers efficiently and bring down overheads.

Technology can either complement or supplement the channels of distribution cost effectively. It can also help to improve customer service levels. The use of data warehousing management and mining will help to find out the profitability and potential of various customers product segments.

  1. Flow of activities: all the major activities of banks follow RBI guidelines. There has to be adherence to certain rules and principles in the banking operations. The activities have been segregated into various departments accordingly.
  2. Standardization: banks have got standardized procedures got typical transactions. In fact not only all the branches of a single-bank, but all the banks have some standardization in them. This is because of the rules they are subject to. Besides this, each of the banks has its standard forms, documentations etc. Standardization saves a lot of time behind individual transaction.
  3. Customization: There are specialty counters at each branch to deal with customers of a particular scheme. Besides this the customers can select their deposit period among the available alternatives.
  4. Number of stores: numbers of steps are usually specified and a specific pattern is followed to minimize time taken.
  5. Simplicity: in banks various functions are segregated. Separate counters exist with clear indication. Thus a customer wanting to deposit money goes to ‗deposits ‘counter and does not mingle elsewhere. This makes procedures not only simple but consume less time. Besides instruction boards in national boards in national and regional language help the customers further.

(7) Physical Distribution:

Distribution is a key determinant of success for all insurance companies. Today, the nationalized insurers have a large reach and presence in India. Building a distribution network is very expensive and time consuming. Technology will not replace a distribution network though it will offer advantages like better customer service. Finance companies and banks can emerge as an attractive distribution channel for insurance in India. In Netherlands, financial services firms provide an entire range of products including bank accounts, motor, home and life insurance and pensions. In France, half of the life insurance sales are made through banks. In India also, banks hope to maximize expensive existing networks by selling a range of products.

The physical evidences include signage, reports, punch lines, other tangibles,

employee‘s dress code etc.

  1. Tangibles: banks give pens, writing pads to the internal customers. Even the passbooks, chequebooks, etc. reduce the inherent intangibility of services.
  2. Punch lines: punch lines or the corporate statement depict the philosophy and attitude of the bank. Banks have influential punch lines to attract the customers. Banking marketing consists of identifying the most profitable markets now and in future, assessing the present and future needs of customers, setting business development goals, making plans-all in the context of changing environment.

In India, banks hope to maximize expensive existing networks by selling a range of products. It is anticipated that rather than formal ownership arrangements, a loose network of alliance between insurers and banks will emerge, popularly known as bank assurance. Another innovative distribution channel that could be used are the non-financial organizations. We can‘t deny the fact that if foreign banks are performing fantastically, it is not only due to the sophisticated information technologies they use but the result of a fair synchronization of new information technologies and a team of personally committed employees. The development of human resources makes the ways for the formation of human capital.

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