(Blog-Off II Entry) Credit cards: Who wants my money?!

Say, I want you. Finally! Cause you’re cool and seductive. But, you have to be cheap and easy, that’s just my taste. It’s even oke for me to put some effort in you. I’d search for you (online), and pay for you (€15 till €30 per month, I said I was looking for cheap and easy). And although I will not promise to be fateful to you forever, if you don’t cross me and perform as expected I will not leave you. Unless off course I am seduced by a new mistress, with new golden promises. Why, I ask, why can’t I find you? Why do I have to make such an effort? And I even wanted to pay you.

Oke, I think I made it pretty obvious I wanted to purchase a credit card. To whom can I give my money? About a Turkish bazaar and a lazy dinosaur.

Marketing is about exploiting commonalities of large enough groups of people. Thus, about exploiting the obvious. Well, I am male, heavy internet user, main earner of a household, young professional and customer of a large Dutch bank (ABN AMRO). Why did no one ever offered a credit card to me. Not even my own bank, who should know me well enough? Strange isn’t it? Oke, fair enough, I’ll have to go out there and look for myself.

Old fashioned commercials have jammed one name into my brain very solid: Visa. Via WOM I am also familiar with ‘ANWB’, a Dutch provider. Cause the law of Gestalt (which stipulates that something that is more close to you is preferred)is strongest here, I surf to ANWB.nl. The site resembles a Turkish bazaar, where 1001 flashing and moving rebates and actions seem to jump at me. Buy me! Take me!  Alas, after some searching I discover that their cheap and well featured card is only for ANWB customers, bummer!

Oke, What’s next for me? The mere exposure effect (which says that something you have seen, even if at was once, and even if you don’t know anything else about it is preferred) kicks in. Their site is much less aggressive, but alas not much better. Visa suffers from the product centric disease. This is something company’s can have, which leads them to think they are the most important thing in the universe, and everyone knows all about Visa and their product. Well, I don’t! Results of this disease are rather funny, because when I go to ‘Visa for you’, al their possible cards are presented to me. And I have to click on each single card, and write down the differences between then, and research some strange technical words. Only then I know which card is best for me. Is there no one at Visa who can translate those quite obvious needs into a comparison tool? II don’t want a card form such a dinosaur.

Last attempt, my own bank. They know me, and have all my data. Even better, since the credit crunch, I own a piece of them! After finding their credit card (can I find it at pay, lend or other services?) it gets even better, they have the perfect card for me! Cheap, low interest, and even travel Insurance is included. Alas, my bank is still a lazy dinosour.  

I have to download, fill in and send (per old fashioned mail) a huge form, with more than 50 items! And after receiving this thing, they’ll let me know something, after a week. Stupid me, thinking I already was their client, they had my data and autograph, and would make it easy for me to give my money. For now, it stays with me…

What do you think, am I a lazy and spoiled consumer, or should those company’s at least make some effort to meet my contemporary and obvious needs in order to get my money?

Comments

[Credit Cards]

cross-selling does not necessarily have to be performed correctly for all products they have in their assortment.
----------------------
Marlynn

[Betty van der Zanden]

Good article.
In my opinion, I am happy no one offers me credit cards. If you need one, you can get in contact with the company you want. It is true that it is really annoying that the information about the different possibilities is not easy to find. But I rather put my energy in it when I need a credit card than being spammed about products I don't want and need.

[Tobias Braam]

@ Darlene, they do actively offer you credit card services? Mayby a difference between the US and The Netherlands, I never hear anything.

@Tim
Thank you, I'll try. Can they just lower your credit without any good reason? Strange, and are their more blogs where you post your dismay? Not good PR for them.

[Darlene]

For me, if I don't have the cash I can't buy it. I got rid of my credit cards and kept one card for emergencies with a $500.00 limit. This way I stay out of trouble and out of the line of fire when they want new clients. Good article.

[Tim]

I see that this crunch is obviously all over the world, the credit card companies feel they OWN us. I recently decided to get rid of all my credit cards. One of my credit cards from Bank of America decided to lower my limit by $2,000. Talk about annoying, I was always on time with my payments and had almost nil balance...After that I decided why give them money if they can't even service their own customers. Then I hear stories like this and just remind me why I hate banks. Great post. Keep up the good work.

[Stijn Driessen]

Cross selling is proven to be cheaper than to acquire new customers. Also because you have more accurate information available from your own customers than from prospects you would be more able to recognize the needs of that individual to match a good service to. There are a lot of metrics available to measure the value of a current customer and to indicate whether or not the current customer is an interesting target for cross-selling. Although there is no perfect metric with a perfect fit, companies are able to predict values close enough to make good marketing decisions.

Maybe your bank has this as well, only their metric does not capture you as an interesting (prospective) client. But right now we are talking about cross selling, what you should keep in mind that the service failure is mostly based on the lack of usage for cross data. I.e. You'd have to fill out a huge form in order to get the information you require. What you would have expected is that this wouldn't be necessary anymore.

[Bart van Leeuwen]

Interesting article.

I agree on your point that your own bank should know much about you. Who isn't familiar with CRM nowadays? Should be an easy task to spot customers that are interested for cross selling a credit card to I would say. They got many many many useful informaton about you. But maybe as Stijn says it is not embedded correctly..... yet.

This doesn't make it more fair that you have to do that much work to get a credit card from your own bank. Makes me think: isn't it a bad sign for ABN Amro that you first look at other companies for a credit card than your own bank?

[Tobias Braam]

@ Marnix,

it is possible for them, e.a. at Ohra in the Netherlands you can obtain your card direct. If they have no trouble obtaining your data and interacting with Visa, why do others?

@ Aline

thanks for your impressive comment, I totally agree!

[Marnix]

Indeed an interesting article Tobias.

I agree with your comment that sites should incorporate a "comparison-tool" (i.e. VISA) to make it easier for the potential client. However, I wonder if it is even possible for the ABN AMRO to just send you a "card". They are indeed in cross-selling, by means of selling insurances, but again, they just take over the role of the big insurance companies. It could be that they have to deliver your "personal" information to VISA/Mastercard/American Express, to send you "their card". Hence, filling in a form is deemed suitable. Still, they should make it easier, by already generating personal information from you in "this form". If you want to do this online, there should be a secured "login" screen that makes it possible to cross-link to this specific form.. mmm.. seems like a challenging job.

And then again.. what's wrong with enjoying the weather and just visit them in person?

[Tobias Braam]

Hey Stijn,

thanks for the elaborate comment. I found it staggering that my own bank treated me as a complete stranger, although they know everything form me, even my most intimate purchases.

I find your emphasis on cross-selling interesting, is that the solution?

[Aline]

Gets me thinking...
Every day I am getting more and more annoyed with the companies I have been so loyal to...
Referring to your rhetorical question:
Companies! Get a move on or we'll cheat on you!
Interesting blog!

[Laetitia]

Nice entry!

[Stijn Driessen]

It is obviously companies are not listening that carefully to their prospects. Although research has proven customer retention is cheaper than customer allocation, companies have too many data that they do not use. Either this is because they do not know how to use it or they have that many data that they do not even know what they can use anymore.

It is seriously a lack in most industries, although there are some companies that have managed their customer retention via cross-selling perfectly. In most cases these companies are service providers and there are some good examples of financial companies that excel in doing this. Think about banks that also manage insurance for their clients. Cross-selling can happen for two reasons: maturity of the client (whenever a client get more acquainted with the company/product they start buying additional stuff, for example when you buy a subscription for your phone network, first you start with only calling and texting, later on you want the internet on your mobile phone too) and selecting the right customers for the right (additional) products (effectively done by gathering the right data and performing the right analyses with).

However, cross-selling does not necessarily have to be performed correctly for all products they have in their assortment. As mentioned previously there are some banks that have managed their product portfolio correctly for their customers considering a bank account and insurance. It seems though that in your case this is not embedded correctly for a credit card, which is quite weird for banks because they make a lot of money with it.