Such efforts help increase the cross-sell ratio with key customers, which in turn should improve customer loyalty and further stabilize a bank’s revenue base. Providing the personal touch has long served community banks well, but personalized service alone may become less sufficient in the years ahead.
Conducting sound market research and pricing to reflect competition, customer value, and underlying risk are becoming more important for success. Recent abuses of corporate accounting practices and other matters provide good lessons in risk management as bankers try to increase earnings by cross-selling more products.