Marketing Principles of a Neglected Banking Service: Safe Deposit Box Rental

Purpose of this paper is identifying factors which hinder demand for Safe Deposit Box service and factors that are important for customers when they want to get Safe Deposit Box Service. Methodology consisted of the use of literature review, interviews and focus groups to form our questionnaires; then two surveys were conducted to extract our results. Findings show (a) customer perception of lack of safety and privacy are the main causes of little demand for Safe Deposit Box Service; (b) making the customers feel safe, by giving the information or insuring the boxes can be very useful in marketing Safe Deposit Box service; (c) Bank CRM, personnel behavior and skills and proximity to home/office are also important factors for customers who demand SDBR service. There was no prior formulation of SDBR service marketing practices openly published, so the use of general literature on bank marketing and focus groups was performed. Focus groups take the ideas of some groups of people for granted; as few people can take apart in them. This work provides a base for marketing Safe Deposit Box Rental Service. Although the direct income from this service may not seem to be high, the effects of this service on customer satisfaction have been evaluated to be dramatic. Former research had focused on retail bank marketing in general; we failed to find a research aimed at marketing Safe Deposit Box Services. Our work has directly focused on marketing this service.