Situational Analysis Of Customer Behaviour For National Australia Bank

Nature of the banking industry, market, and buyer behaviour

Customers form an integral part of any business organisation. (Andriof, Waddock, Husted, Rahman, and 2017, pp.19-42) points out that the customers are the critical aspect that determines the success or failure of an enterprise in accordance to the sales made within a financial period and how sustainable the rate of sales is articulated.

Concisely, the sales managers are ever seeking to be a step ahead of the customer behaviour that is ever changing from time to time. (Gursoy, Cai, and Anaya, 2017, pp.2341-2360) illustrates that the customer behavior is the study of groups, the individuals, or the organisations concerning all the actions related to the purchases, the use of goods and services that includes the customers’ mental, behavioural, and the emotional responses regarding the quality of services and offered commodities. The research study presented is aimed at providing a situational analysis of the customer behaviour that influences decision making in the marketing the products of the National Australia Bank (NAB).

Situational analysis 

It refers to a collection of measures that the marketing or administrative managers use to evaluate an organisation’s internal and the external factors to understand the capabilities of the firm, its customers, and to define the position of the business in the market and the overall environment.

Some scholars attribute the concepts of situation analysis to the SWOT analysis in making critical marketing decisions from the evaluation of the weakness, strengths, weaknesses, and the potential opportunities of the organisation (Wheelen,  Hunger, Hoffman, and Bamford, 2017). Concisely, the situation analysis for the customer behaviour of the NAB calls for understanding the nature of the organisation, the products and services offered, the buyer and the market behaviour to determine how the firm can engage their customers through effective strategies that promote more sales by influencing the customer’s purchase and brand switching decisions.  

Nature of the banking industry, market, and buyer behaviour

The emergence and innovation of new technologies in the banking sector have created a highly competitive market both in Australia and in the world at large that have greatly impacted on the customer behaviour (Fuerst, Gabrieli, and McAllister, 2017, pp.137-146).

The arrival of these technologies has overridden the old tradition of buying patterns where the consumers had no incentives for change but to incur the outlined prices for the financial instruments as revealed by (Cressey, 2018, pp.173-192). This practice collectively calls for the providers of the banking services to understand their customers in an attempt to influence and determine their cunsumers’ buying trends and traits. For the managers in the industry to achieve this they need to devise a model that can articulate and provide a classification of the dynamic customer behaviours that are in line with the purchase of the financial products and services.

The NAB organisation, products, and other administrative aspects

However, (Rambocas, Kirpalani, and Simms, 2018, pp.19-40) proposed a model based on the consumer matrix model that defines the consumers in the banking sector through involvement and exhibition of their confidence in the provided services and products. The consumer behaviour matrix is visually presented below.  

The model illustrates the types of behaviours among the consumers as presented in the diagram above. The repeat-passive customer behaviour depicts a poor involvement in the financial products despite being aware of the salient features of the offered products. Additionally, some scholars consider these customers as passive they will make repeated transactions with the similar product without seeking alternatives thus described as behavioural loyalty consumers. On the other hand, the rationale active type of consumer behaviour is that where their involvement in the services offered is too high as well as their confidence in the products. The economic theory acknowledges these type of customer behaviour as that of people who actively make careful purchase decisions after evaluation of all the choices as they are rationally inclined.

The other group is the no purchase type of consumers who have no involvement in the financial product and exhibit no confidence in making financial decisions thus end up making no purchase but rather leave their deposits that could potentially generate returns should they have purchased the financial products. The pieces literature depict that financial marketing strategies are directed to this group of customer behaviours to increase their awareness on an alternative of financial products.

Another customer behaviour is the relational dependent who are highly involved in financial decisions but are unfortunately not in control due to the complexity and the uncertainty surrounding the products thus eventually minimising their confidence. Furthermore, for these customers to make financial decisions they will seek advice from the financial institutions, the banks, or third parties thus described as the dependent group of customer behaviour. 

The NAB organisation, products, and other administrative aspects

As the marketing research manager for the NAB, it is crucial to outline the products and the services offered. The bank has three chief customer officers that have been appointed to align its operations with the focus on the customer. Additionally, the bank offers personal banking that has continuously been transformed into consumer banking and wealth management services for its customers.

The NAB private banking provides a diverse retail product of banking to its customers with credit cards, mortgages, savings, and the transactions accounts. However, NAB wealth management avails the consumers with a broad range of cash management and wrap services, private banking, supernatural and investment products, and stockbroking services. Additionally, the bank offers delivery for the services and products through institutional relationships with its clients. Another essential service offered is the business banking where the bank offers a bulk range of lending, payment solutions services as wee as ranging from the corporate and the corporate and sole pactitioners firm.

The target market/ audience for the NAB

The Australian Prudential Regulations Authority (APRA) have acknowldeged a great perfomance of the NAB which has established a strong intermediary relationship with the customers through a leading digital banking experience as a way of evaluating and capturing the interests of the customer behaviour. These can be displayed visually through the financial data provided by the APRA that is the basis of the customer behaviour as per october 2018.

Aspect	Value $ million
Cash and liquidity assets	13388
Trading securities	78625
Investment securities	63822
Gross loans and advancances	474005
Other investments	10392
Total resident assets	701674
Outstanding principal balance of securitised assets	1619
Value of housing loans securitised	1551

The information from the table can be presnted on a graph as shown below. The data is a reflection of customer behaviour reflecting performance of different aspects in the banking market.

In order for the bank to improve the aspects mentioned and improve the revenue, there is the need to create a greater purchase intent and consideration among the no purchase customer behaviour group. Additionally, as a research manager, surveying the NAB customers would enable the organisation to learn from the customer behaviour thus increasing the chances of customer retention by 14 per cent according to (Sigit, 2018, pp.53-64). It has been proven by most scholars that the banks usually have data that they are not enough about their customers thus end up unable to segment them and properly target them as the customers prefer a more holisitic and an engaging approach as ascertained by (Moliner, Monferrer, and Estrada, 2018).

The target market/ audience for the NAB 

The target market for the NAB are the existing customers who have access to the banking services and products. Additionally, the bank is currently targetting the banking customers from other banks after the implementation of the proposed changes of customer engagement and focus that would see the clients have their way as a top priority. The bank further targets the college and university students seeking banking services as well as the civilian adults in need of wealth management services through provision of the credit card and savings account services.

The bank further seeks to acquire the information and knowledge surrounding these target customers to obtain the customer behaviour information that will facilitate involvement of the new clients thus influencing the bank-switching decisions by the consumers as a sustainable marketing solution.

References

Andriof, J., Waddock, S., Husted, B., & Rahman, S. S. (2017). Unfolding stakeholder engagement. In Unfolding stakeholder thinking (pp. 19-42). London: Routledge.

Cressey, P. (2018). Technology and banking: the use of information technology. In Information Technology and Workplace Democracy (pp. 173-192). London: Routledge.

Fuerst, F., Gabrieli, T., & McAllister, P. (2017). A green winner’s curse? Investor behavior in the market for eco-certified office buildings. Economic Modelling, 61, 137-146.

Gursoy, D., Cai, R., & Anaya, G. J. (2017). Developing a typology of disruptive customer behaviors: Influence of customer misbehavior on service experience of by-standing customers. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 29(9), 2341-2360.

Moliner, M. Á., Monferrer, D., & Estrada, M. (2018). Consequences of customer engagement and customer self-brand connection. Journal of Services Marketing.

Rambocas, M., Kirpalani, V. M., & Simms, E. (2018). Brand equity and customer behavioral intentions: a mediated moderated model. International Journal of Bank Marketing, 36(1), 19-40.

Sigit Parawansa, D. A. (2018). Effect of commitment and customers’ satisfaction on the relationship between service quality and customer retention in rural banks in Makassar, Indonesia. Journal of Management Development, 37(1), 53-64.

Wheelen, T. L., Hunger, J. D., Hoffman, A. N., & Bamford, C. E. (2017). Strategic management and business policy. London: Pearson.