Who uses banking services?
According to recent findings from the Survey of American Consumers by Mediamark Research Inc., over seven out of ten U.S. adults use some bank service. Savings accounts are one of the most popular bank offerings, used by 46.9% of adults.
Savings account...............46.9%
"Now" interest bearing checking account............26.8%
Other checking account...38.3%
Home mortgage (1st)........16.4%
Auto loan for new car.........4.8%
Personal loan: education, vacation, other..................13.0%
Personal line of credit.........7.5%
Cash management account...2.7%
Men and women who are above average for having savings accounts have the following key demographic characteristics:
College graduates................23%
Executive, administrative, managerial occupations......25%
Household incomes of $50,000 and over...............................25%
Consumers who have "Now" interest bearing checking accounts tend also to be better educated, more affluent people who are employed in executive and managerial positions. Those aged 65 and over are more likely to have this source of interest than younger consumers.
College graduates................43%
Executive, administrative, managerial occupations.....34%
Household income of $50,000 and over...............................32%
Age: 45 to 54 years................9%
55 to 64 years...............12%
65 years or over...........22%
Shoppers face stress
While the number of ways and places to buy goods and services has dramatically increased, primary shoppers for dual-earner families (usually women) often feel shopping is stressful and interferes with leisure time and families, says a new study by a Rochester Institute of Technology professor.
Despite these feelings, consumers have not been successful in reducing time needed to shop, says Dr. Eugene Fram, RIT's J. Warren McClure Research Professor in Marketing.
"The opportunities for business to develop time-saving services are great," Fram says. "Harried consumers need more support from sellers in handling their shopping and service requirements."
A nationally representative sample of 500 married shoppers with children aged 13 and under were queried about their shopping styles to determine the ways they handle their shopping crunch. Nearly three-quarters were dual earners; the rest were single earners. Highlights of survey results show:
- 92 percent of wives are primarily responsible for buying goods; dual-earner wives make 78% of service transactions.
- Shopping adds stress to their lives, say half of the primary shoppers of dual income families with children. Single-income families' primary shoppers are not far behind - about one-third say shopping adds stress.
- Two-thirds believe they how have less time to shop than five years ago.
- Shopping interferes with quality time spent with children, one in three dual-earner parents say.
Money is time for dual earners, who are less likely to use traditional dollar-saving mechanisms, the study found. They spend less time redeeming grocery store coupons, responding to refund offers and comparison shopping. At the grocery store, they buy more impulsively and at the most convenient location.
"With 58 percent of dual earners and 35 percent of single earners wanting ways to reduce shopping time, sellers need to find ways to respond," Fram says.
Business travelers demand quality improvements
In an attempt to provide high quality service levels to their customers, many airlines, hotel chains, and car rental companies are concentrating their efforts in areas that are the least important and missing service improvements in what frequent travelers say are more important areas, according to the Executive Travel Tracking Service study from Opinion Research Corporation (ORC).
In the first of a series of studies to monitor travel industry performance, ORC asked 400 executives from companies listed in Fortune 500, Fortune Service 500 editions and the Dun and Bradstreet Million Dollar Directory what is most important to them when it comes to business travel. Executives also indicated the actual performance of and overall satisfaction with leading airlines, hotel chains, and carrental companies. These executives traveled on business an average of 45 days in the past year, with averages of 34 nights spent in hotels, 34 commercial airline trips, and 20 car rental days.
The focus of this ongoing study is to identify key gaps between what frequent travelers say is important and what the perception of actual service delivery is. This analysis provides companies opportunities to improve the areas that matter most to their customers and indicate where more performance than is expected is being provided.
For the airline industry, this study finds that the three most important criteria for judging service performance are also the areas with the widest gaps compared to actual performance ratings. Airlines, compared to hotels and rental car companies, have the largest gaps between what customers say they want and what they say they get - there are no positive gaps, which would indicate areas where air travelers are more than satisfied.
In the lodging industry, the four most important considerations are: billing accuracy; efficient check-in; reliable message services; and employees who care about the customer. The least important considerations are: multiple dining and lounge facilities and late evening room service. In terms of the size of the gap between importance and delivery, the lodging industry fares better than the airlines.
Service delivery does not meet standards of importance for efficient check-in (-25 points) and quality customer service (-23 points). Gaps for billing accuracy and message service are much more acceptable (-3 points and -8 points respectively) and indicate importance scores and delivery are close to being met.
the two least critical areas, hotels are over-delivering certain service. The gap between service importance and service delivery for dining and lounge facilities is a positive 18 points indicating service delivery exceeds importance to the cus-tomer. Similarly, the gap for late evening room service is also positive (14 points), again indicating delivery exceeds importance.
For the auto rental industry, the two largest negative gaps between service importance and performance are in the areas of the mechanical condition of the rental cars and employees who care (-21 points each). Like lodging, the auto rental industry has several areas where service delivery exceeds importance. Also, like the lodging industry, these areas are in the least critical area to the renter - car model variety (+30 points) and quality of frequent renter programs (+10 points).
"Our Executive Travel Tracking Service highlights a major concern within the travel industry - neither the airlines, hotel chains nor car rental companies are giving travelers what they really want," says Joanne Brewda, vice president of the Travel and Tourism Practice of ORC. "The travel companies appear to be focusing on low cost improvements rather than what the customer says are services which are of greatest importance. It's easier and less costly for an airline to provide upgraded food than it is to improve its baggage handling system. Yet baggage handling is much more important to the customer. Moreover, exceeding importance on the things customers feel are unimportant is a waste of the company's resources."
"Today, companies must realize that improving service quality and delivery pays off in the long run," says Diane Schmalensee, vice president of ORC's Service Quality Practice. "Increases in service quality in turn increase revenue, build customer loyalty and usage, reduce complaints, lower marketing costs, and aid in the attraction and retention of employees. But to realize the service quality payoff requires a company to focus on what customers perceive as really important and this is not happening as much as it should be in the travel industry."