Banks eager to keep customers from jumping to competitors are offering incentives as varied as frequent flier miles and discounts on Rockies tickets when customers use bank products or add services.
The moves aim to thwart competitors looking to steal away customers with gifts such as satellite radios for new accounts. Internet banks also are threats with online savings accounts at better interest rates.
“It’s always important to show your customers that you value them, especially when they have a lot of choices,” said Jeff Shular, a senior vice president with U.S. Bank overseeing retail banking in Denver.
But incentives may not work magic on all customers.
“It wouldn’t really make a difference to me,” said Nathan Haakinson, who lives in Denver and uses U.S. Bank.
“I just want somebody who’s not going to give me too much hassle,” such as fees, Haakinson said. “If they would just stop doing the bad things, I don’t really care about the incentives.”
Wells Fargo, as a sponsor of the Colorado Rockies, has deals such as 2-for-1 club-level home-game seats when purchased with a Wells Fargo card this season. Club-level tickets cost between $43 and $49.
The bank’s Link program in Colorado and Wyoming offers discounts at merchants including Quiznos and Lucky Strike Lanes for paying with a Wells Fargo credit or check card and showing a Link card. The merchants are Wells Fargo’s business customers.
Washington Mutual has a free checking account that gives customers 3 cents back for debit card signature purchases. TCF Bank has a promotion through the end of this month that enters customers to win a Mustang convertible GT with free gas for a year when they use a TCF check card. The Mustang sells from $30,000 to $34,000 depending on options.
“What you want to do is get them into a program where they start adding points or rewards of some sort that is a motivation to stay with a bank,” said TCF spokesman Jason Korstange.
United Airlines has partnerships with Washington Mutual Home Loans, Wachovia, CitiMortgage and Chase that allow customers to earn miles for home loans or other loans. U.S. Bank has affiliations with Cabela’s and Harley-Davidson for rewards programs.
“If you’re just offering a generic checking account, you’re just competing against everybody else out there in the world. But if you’ve got something different, it should have more attractiveness and appeal,” said Larry Martin, an independent banking consultant in Denver.
“Once customers have signed on, banks will try and cross-sell you other services to make it difficult for you to move that relationship.”
Accounts using direct deposit and automatic payments, for example, are more difficult to move, he said.
Chase has in the past offered an iPod to new customers who use online bill pay. It has also offered store gift cards for new customers and those that add on certain services.
“We know that many of our customers still do some of their banking somewhere else, so many times account-opening rewards are still valuable to them because they might have the opportunity to move more business to Chase,” said Chase spokeswoman Mary Jane Rogers.
For many customers, geographic convenience, fees and Internet banking service are important considerations in choosing a bank, Martin said.
But those offering more to customers “are probably attracting a larger share of new accounts than those that don’t,” he said.
Staff writer Kelly Yamanouchi can be reached at 303-820-1488 or kyamanouchi @denverpost.com.
Para leer este artículo en español, vaya a denverpost.com/aldia
