Loyalty in French retail banking among the 18-25 year olds
Authors
Cardon, Fanny
Issue Date
2013
Degree
MA in Marketing
Publisher
Dublin Business School
Rights holder
Rights
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Abstract
Much attention have been given to the customer loyalty concept in different industries to defineefficient strategies. This concept is further important in banking due to a highly interaction with customers but also to an important competition on this market. Young people are a target particularly important in this sector because they are considered as the most difficult target to retain. Consequently the researcher chose to measure how French banks can retain young consumers and especially between 18 and 25 years old. This study attempts to find young customer’s loyalty’s factors in banking in order to suggest a model for this concept. The author used qualitative and quantitative methods in order to meet the objectives and confirm/disconfirm her hypothesis. With her literature review, the researcher discovered the key models and concepts related to her research, which enabled her to establish her studies. French young people aged between 18 and 25 are the data collected. The author used Facebook to administrate her questionnaires as social networks are strongly present throughout young people life. The focus group was led with nine people who answered to the questionnaire. The researcher also carried out four interviews with bank managers. This research shows the young consumers do not feel really committed with their bank even if they are satisfied; they are willing to change their bank in the future when they will have specific needs related to their life changes. Consequently, the author can conclude that it is essential to follow and even anticipate these life changes in order to retain the young consumers. For that, the banks need to offer them a high service quality, with responsiveness, confidence and reliability, but also a strong competitiveness with attractive prices. These elements are indeed considered by the researcher as the most important factors in customer loyalty. It would be interesting to study in a future research the level of loyalty according to the age which young consumers was collected by the banks. Indeed, according to some managers interviewed, earlier the young consumers are collected stronger is their level of loyalty.