The client has a relatively strong brand in the UAE but relatively low market share. Through their communication they aim to establish a brand positioning that demonstrates a clear point of view, makes the brand meaningful and relevant to their target audience. In this regard, the client was planning to launch a powerful campaign that sparks conversation in order to help drive brand awareness and saliency. Two distinct communication routes were tested amongst target customers – one which was a challenging while the other was a safer route.

A Qualitative approach was adopted to evaluate the various communication routes. Focus group discussions and in-depth interviews were conducted based on customer profile. Overall, a step wise interview approach was adopted where one idea and its route was exposed at a time. The idea was unbranded in order to assess reaction to the idea itself and avoid bias. Once each customer completed the individual assessment of the idea, they were called into the group room to discuss each idea in detail. Projective techniques were used to help bring alive the emotional associations with each territory.

The research helped the client to gauge customer comprehension, resonance and reaction to the different Campaign Routes. The research was able to help guide the client with key pointers & watch outs in case they chose the challenging route vs. the safer route. It was also able to bring alive the readiness of the market to accept such a challenging route.

The client has been losing clients recently. To have a better understanding for them to take a decisive action in arresting this decline, they wanted to evaluate their customer experience and the reasons for attrition immediately after the customer closes their relationship. They were also keen to know, if there are any corrective actions, they can take to revive the relationship

Stakeholder interviews with the management and key business functionaries were conducted at the setup stage to understand better their needs, performance metrics and business actions they are looking to take from this research.  These were built into a survey and was piloted to gain a firsthand experience and insights to further fine-tune the instrument. Thereafter, a full-fledged program was launched and is reviewed quarterly to fine tune and make it relevant to business actions.

Online survey is conducted on an ongoing basis. These customers are reached out for their feedback, within 10-15 days of their attrition to have better quality of response. This helps in reaching out to them as soon as they end their relationship with Marsh and help in capturing quality response based on their recent memory recency of experience. A longer window was looked at from a reporting point of views – reporting is done quarterly, to be able to monitor the improvement.

The research is helping the client, in implementing a win-back strategy through enhancing their aspects of business that have been limiting for some of their customers and leading to attrition. Also, the pointers on service quality and customer experience have been particularly very useful in highlighting the importance of customer centricity within the servicing team. This is helping the teams in raising the standards for Service Quality.

• Understand usage and attitude towards credit cards in terms of awareness, consideration, usage, triggers & barriers, choice drivers, etc.
• Understand customer lifestyle in terms of travel habits (destination, flight & accommodation), dining habits, shopping habits, etc.
• Understand customer needs and gaps in the market offerings.
• Understand inclination towards promotions, offers and loyalty rewards.

A hybrid approach was defined to meet the research objective. Exploratory qualitative module was conducted to understand triggers, barriers and choice drivers for the category and brand. Exploratory and in-depth probing also required to understand needs, lifestyle habits (travel, dining & shopping) Qualitative research also shed light on loyalty drivers and impact of rewards / discount programs on loyalty.

Quantitative module was conducted to measure brand saliency & disposition, understand lifestyle habits and preferences, credit card usage and behaviour, etc.

Post this research, the client decided to have a regular competitive benchmark tracking exercise to keep track of fees and offers from competition. The findings from our research showed that the client should improve its offering towards the mass segment as majority of the customer base is skewed towards them.

The research equipped the client with the insight to partner up with service-based Apps and offer special offers and rewards to make their cards attractive.

The client wanted to gain an overall understanding about satisfaction of customers with their relationship with the bank.

They needed to gain a deep understanding of the relative importance of various aspects that are part of the customer journey in terms of staff, process, products etc. This would enable them to identify and prioritize key areas of improvement for the client to implement in order to meet the customer expectations depending on the service.

The interviews were conducted with the telephonically (Computer Aided Telephone Interviews -CATI) using a structured questionnaire.

The research helped the client gain a better understanding of the their  overall customer satisfaction. The research gave an insight into the areas that they excel in and areas that need focus and improvement.

The research also helped the client to benchmark their services as compared to their competitors and to give them a clear picture of where they need to improve.

The client wanted to be positioned as an expert in Islamic Banking and understand Islamic card users preferences in order to develop relevant CVPs.

The research included a first level of understanding through a qualitative research, followed by a quantitative study, to help the client develop an in depth understanding of Islamic credit card users, their needs, levels of familiarity with Islamic banking and its principles/models, and what differentiate them from conventional credit card users.

Design: interviews among users of Islamic and non-Islamic credit users, deep dive by Mass vs. Affluent customers.

The research helped the client to build up its understanding of Islamic banking and Islamic credit card users. The insights were used to initiate discussions with their clients and key opinion leaders / scholars with the perspective of creative new innovative Islamic financial products.

Insights around consumer attitudes, behavior towards online shopping, online payments, and card security perceptions.

Quantitative online research among online shoppers and users of new payment methods such as digital wallets, contactless cards, QR payments.

The research helped the client gather data and general content related to ecommerce, online payments and new payment methods security aspects, ahead of the Card Security Week. The insights were used by the client’s PR agency as a critical input to develop infographics and press releases.

The client was keen to assess their brand’s health in terms of awareness, usage, brand image etc., in a competitive context. They also wanted to evaluate the advocacy strength for their brand as well as assess their brand campaign.

A quantitative personal face-to-face interview was conducted amongst the target audience.

The research helped the client understand the effect of marketing activities carried through-out the year in building brand equity amongst customers and benchmark it with key competition

This also helped the client evaluate the performance & contribution of all advertising and marketing activities and gauge the necessity of re-strategizing in growing client’s business aggressively.

Assess branch merchandising to drive merchandising excellence inside the bank branches through:

• Stands & Posters distribution (Accessible)
• Stands & Posters locations (Convenience)
• Leaflets & Posters Contents (Relevance & Informative)
• Leaflets & Posters Visual Design (Appeal)

3 staged research process was adopted – mystery shopping of branches; customer awareness and satisfaction with merchandising they were exposed to inside the branch and process mapping exercise.

• Helped client in establishing a powerful, personal and long-lasting experience between brand and customer.
• Helped in structuring the merchandising program to inform the customer about various products and services a bank has to offer, which eventually results in product-take up, an increase in customer loyalty, better brand advocacy and an expanded customer base.

• To measure and track customer experience with client bank’s branches – across different customer proposition/segments.
• Understand relative importance of various aspects that are part of the customer journey in terms of staff, process, personal quality, waiting time etc.
• How does the client perform on the customer expectations for each branch in each segment? Identify and prioritize key areas of improvement

Mobile surveys (via sms with survey link)

The research helped the client to better the customer’s experience with the waiting time, speed of service during their visit, the quality of the staff, and the staff ability to explain bank’s products.

The research also helped the client to benchmark which branch is exceling in terms of their services and which are not doing so well and thereby reduce the variance across branches.

This research helped the bank to monitor staff performance and take actions based on immediate feedback as well as incentivize them accordingly.

Understand the current brand image among customers in a competitive context

A Qualitative Brand Equity Research among different types of banking customers to understand how client brand is positioned in relation to its key competition on aspects related to – Brand Understanding; Brand Personality; User Imagery, Brand Image drivers, Strength & Weakness

Design: Mini group discussions with lower mass, mass and upper mass customers with income group between. In-depth interviews with Lower and Upper Affluent customers.

The research helped the client understand what the ideal banking features and services are perceived as by today’s modern customer.

The research helped identify the triggers and barriers amongst KSA banking customers. A detailed comparison of client bank’s position in 2015 vs. 2018 was done. The research equipped the client with an understanding of their brand equity outlining their personality, values, imagery etc.

It also helped the client know customers recent preferences towards banking communications etc.