Discount Brokerage Services
1. A brokerage service through which you can make stock, bonds, etc, transactions
2. The service does not recommend securities or provide advice on market conditions
3. Services
Completing transactions
Providing stock market information
You can use your checking account for transactions
Monthly statement
Margin account – this allows you to borrow against the value of your securities.
4. Brokerage fees are 50 percent to 70 percent less than full-services brokerage fees
Comprehensive Monthly Statement
An integrated monthly statement would be sent to you that lists the status of all your accounts including checking, savings, certificates of deposit (CDs), money market investments, IRAs, stocks and bonds investments, and any securities held in safekeeping for your by the bank. (Note: A detailed example of a statement was shown to the respondent.)
Service, Traditional Bankers (Order Takers)
1. Traditional personal banker would service your account
2. No one person is assigned to you. When you walk into the bank, any one of a number of personal bankers would handle your business
3. By law this person cannot give investment advice, such as stock purchase recommendations
Service, Personal Account Officer
1. A specific person would be assigned to you, and you would conduct your cash management account business through that specific officer
2. This person would know you personally and would be knowledgeable about your specific financial situation
3. By law this person cannot give investment advice, such as stock purchase recommendations
As with any type of research process, there are potential pitfalls of which the bank and the researcher must be aware. One potential pitfall is to assume that customers will purchase a product just because they say certain attributes are important. Opinions are a far cry from actual purchase decisions which place consumers at risk. This makes the interpretation of advanced concept testing of prime importance, and a trained researcher may prove to be of invaluable assistance here. Other pitfalls lie in the definition given to attributes and various levels of attributes. Having a personal account officer may mean different things to different people. Also, there may be other important attributes excluded from the testing situation, ones that may, in fact, influence subsequent purchase behavior more than those included in the test. Further, there is little way to assess customer trade-off levels relative to product attributes on subsequent product design. For example, how much would the minimum balance requirement have to be lowered for the customer to accept a $15 monthly fee versus a $10 monthly fee? These type of questions cannot be answered under this research format.
One last pitfall in interpreting results from advanced concept testing – the lack of knowledge of competitive reactions. Competitor responses can only be obtained with product introduction on a full-scale basis or in a more limited test market format. And often the product attributes can only be evaluated correctly when compared with what other similar products have to offer. While certain assumptions can be made through advanced concept tests, there is no accurate means to determine just how the product performs under actual market conditions unless the bank goes to the actual market and conducts tests. However, for many bank products this may not be important.
The reader is encouraged to refer to the appendix to Chapter 4 for a more thorough, yet introductory, treatment of concept testing. It is included here also to reinforce the importance of testing your product concept with potential customers. It is not an answer to all product design problems, but it may provide valuable insights at this stage of the framework to prevent severe market introduction errors.
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