Report: Word-of-mouth marketing not working for most banks as industry records -11.18 NPS score
Word-of-mouth marketing or advertising is not working for most banks in the country, says a recent report by Global InfoAnalytics.
Word-of-mouth marketing as measured by Net Promoter Score (NPS) metric, rates customer loyalty and how likely customers are to refer the brand, products, and services to others.
Per the recent report, the Ghanaian banking industry recorded a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of -11.18% as the percentage of detractors exceeded that of promoters.
According to the research firm, 33.42% of the respondents of its survey are detractors and 22.24% are promoters. The passives represent quite a significant portion of the respondents at 44.34%.
Detractors are unhappy and/or dissatisfied customers who mainly account for negative word-of-mouth marketing of banks.
The passives are satisfied/neutral customers who mostly likely won’t tarnish or promote the bank.
For promoters, these are happy, loyal customers responsible for most referrals through brand promotion.
Given the negative NPS score, Global InfoAnalytics indicates that, there is generally a lot of work to be done by the banking sector to improve customer experience and thereby improve upon its NPS.
Despite the negative NPS score by the industry, two banks recorded positive NPS scores of 14.81% and 14.61% respectively.
Zenith Bank (14.81%) and Prudential Bank (14.61%) recorded positive NPS scores, indicating that the Word-of-mouth marketing or advertising worked for them during the survey period.
Improving NPS
According to Global InfoAnalytics, for the industry to improve its NPS, it must first connect with detractors.
“There’s a reason for the detractors to feel the way they do about your brand. Through Voice of the Customer (VoC) analysis and Customer Experience program, tap into detractors’ feelings and understand what went wrong in their experience of the brand’s products and services.
“Because detractors feel so strongly about what can be improved, they can be an excellent source of empowering ideas. Acting on their feedback can convert detractors into promoters,” it notes.
The second is to convert passives into promoters.
“Since passives are not unhappy with the band’s products and services, getting feedback from them and acting on those feedback could see them become promoters quite quickly,” it adds.
The third is by keeping promoters engaged.
“Promoter’s enthusiasm about a brand generally comes from a fantastic experience or experiences with the brand, something done to make their customer experience memorable. Feedback from promoters can give an understanding of what was done right and what can be improved. Promoters can help you transform your product and services from good to to great,” the report further noted.
Global InfoAnalytics in partnership with NorvanReports, conducts a brand health check survey for the banking sector in Ghana to highlight how the various banks are performing on Key Brand Metrics (KBM) and provide insights into the industry. The report also ranks top banks on a number of metrics.
The Key Brand Metrics (KBM) include: Brand Recall, Brand Visibility, Brand Loyalty and Net Promoter Score (NPS).