APPLICATION OF MARKETING CONCEPT IN BANKS AND ITS EFFECTIVENESS IN CONSUMER SATISFACTION

 

CHAPTER ONE 

 

INTRODUCTION 

 

1.0    BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY 

The marketing concept is a customer-centered ideology that contends that a company’s ability to satisfy its clients justifies its existence on both an economic and social level. According to these principles, the business ought to be customer-focused. Aim for financial success. Coordinate all of its marketing efforts and sales volume. Yet, businesses employ marketing management as a means of capturing the marketing notion. Marketing management is described by Kurtz (1992. Page. 3) as a unified strategy that marshals and directs all of a business firm’s resources toward identifying and satiating a customer’s and consumer’s demands in a way intended to improve the firm’s overall profit position. Where the marketing notion is understood, the foundational principles of business are completely altered. rather than attempting to market what can be produced. Though the profit criterion is present, management only creates what the client actually needs. Serving and maintaining customer satisfaction are equally vital to the business. By comprehending that it involves more than just selling a specific product, a customer’s specific demand is successfully met. The goal of marketing for banking services is to provide customers what they want, keep the banking industry on solid ground, and foster both short- and long-term sustainable growth. the contemporary industrial, commercial, and technological transformation under pressure from growing competition. Customers’ expectations and other volatile external factors are blatant signs that a company must adopt the marketing concepts mindset or perish. The recent explosion of banks in Nigeria portends a more competitive environment in which only those able to adapt quickly would be able to sustain expansion and profitability. Commercial banks have more hurdles as a result of the current economic changes in Nigeria, without a doubt. Due to these patterns of change, banks now understand that they cannot just treat their consumers arbitrarily. So, banks hire marketing professionals who actively go out and ask for consumers’ business and loyalty. Banks today understand how critical it is to keep a tight contact with consumers and provide services as close to their locations as feasible.  Most banks set up marketing research department or as the case maybe in order to gather more facts about customer needs, attitude, motives and preference.

The orientation of banking service started with production concept which believes that customer would buy the services offered to them by banks provided it is accessible and affordable. Thus banks thinks of offering useful services and open out more branches to make their service accessible. Later the bank moves to product concept under the assumption that customers would buy such services that offers the best quality and value for the price that is being offered. Thus banks direct their efforts in improving the quality of their services. However, at the later stage of their development, sales orientation comes into effect i.e. selling concept which believes that customers would not buy enough from them unless a positive extra effort is made to sale the product due to increase in competition and awareness. Today, the application of marketing concept makes banks to accept the fact of finding out the needs and wants of customers and to provide banking service package that will best satisfy such needs and wants profitably. The marketing concept has been viewed as the correct philosophy in achieving a long – term commercial success. Thus making the task of persuading customers to buy the service that bank offered very easy. Therefore customer satisfaction becomes inevitable. The marketing concept is directed towards answering the question as to, who are our customers.  Who do we manufacture for? What marketing strategies do we use? We sell this product for what purpose? To whom do we sell? Also, it is important to learn what the customer wants, where they want to purchase the product, and how they want it delivered in order to build a positive relationship between the business and its customers and attain the highest level of satisfaction. Up until recently, Nigeria’s banking industry was defined by what experts refer to as “arm chair banking,” in which bankers sit in their offices and wait for work to come to them. Because the bank had not completely embraced marketing notion, its philosophy, and its function, this way to conducting banking business was flawed. Their understanding of marketing is still very limited. Actually, the marketing of bank services goes beyond these narrow objectives. Nigerian commercial banks should implement marketing concept programs for a focused and client-centered approach to banking. The following questions will be addressed by this research as a result of the aforementioned variables.
(1) To conduct research and identify the areas that banks believe are important for ensuring customer satisfaction.

2) To find out how bank employees feel about their clients, and the other way around.
3) To learn where marketing fits into the commercial banks’ organizational structure, what role it plays there, and how much marketing is actually used.
4) To evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of using marketing concepts.
5) To offer constructive suggestions for improvement

1.1    STATEMENT OF GENERAL PROBLEM

The Nigerian commercial banks don’t appear to fully understand the marketing concept. For commercial banks, integrated marketing is more of a concept than a reality. According to this theory, businesses should be set up to satisfy clients by directing all of their efforts toward a single goal. As a result, customers do not receive the appropriate level of attention in banks that they should in a service organization. Furthermore, banks charge discriminatory interest rates on borrowed funds which causes untold hardship to customers.

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