Shifting sands: An interest-relative theory of vagueness

Abstract

Retail banks generate new checking accounts by routinely promoting products and services to college students. Prospecting for new student customers is an ongoing and challenging task. Therefore, it is useful to know why students would switch from a bank currently serving them to a competing bank. With this knowledge, bank marketers can focus on relevant features and benefits when interacting with potential student customers. Retaining students as customers poses another challenge, so it is also important to know how well banks in the marketplace perform on certain attributes. This information enables a bank marketer to place attention on salient characteristics and ones that can differentiate a bank from competitors. This study yielded insights into the college–student market by evaluating reasons for students switching banks and selecting new banks. Students’ perceptions of bank performance in relation to product quality, price and service quality dimensions were also obtained. Aggregating student’s opinions of different banks indicated the marketplace performance on these dimensions, thus suggesting areas for differentiation to achieve a competitive advantage.Journal of Financial Services Marketing (2006) 11, 49–63. doi:10.1057/palgrave.fsm.4760016 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]