New BAI Research study: 79% of business owners use same financial services organization for personal and business financial needs
CHICAGO, IL (April 10, 2019) — BAI, a nonprofit independent organization that delivers the financial services industry’s most actionable insights, recently uncovered key challenges and opportunities related to business banking for financial services organizations during its webinar, BAI Banking Outlook: Business Banking Insights.
The BAI Banking Outlook is a research program that focuses on a different area of interest each quarter. During the April 4 webinar, BAI researchers explained key findings from the latest BAI Banking Outlook study, which focused on business banking. Understanding the wants and needs of business banking is often viewed as more challenging than consumer banking, so this iteration of the BAI Banking Outlook was designed to help industry leaders better understand what businesses truly expect from their financial services provider.
As part of the research, BAI surveyed 600 business owners with annual sales revenue $20 million or less. Highlights from the BAI Banking Outlook, Business Banking Insights include:
- 79% of business owners reported using the same provider for their personal and business financial services relationships.
- Business owners have a lower net promoter score (NPS) than consumers. Banking consumers have an already low NPS of 35, while business customers have an NPS of 24.
- The top three reasons why a business owner would choose a new main business financial services provider are lowest fees, best rates and understanding their business needs.
- Although the majority of business customers visited a branch to open a new account, including deposit accounts, loans and merchant services, nearly 70% of business owners would prefer to open a deposit account online, and almost 50% would prefer to open a loan online.
- The top four customer experience improvements business owners would like are:
- Improve the omnichannel experience,
- Transform branches for better in-person experiences with experts to help achieve financial goals,
- Deliver tools and options to customize solutions, and
- Provide more useful real-time content to manage day-to-day banking.
“One of the most important priorities we uncovered is that business owners expect a smooth omnichannel experience, which they are not receiving today,” said Karl Dahlgren, managing director of research for BAI. “Businesses need their financial services provider to make their banking experience easy, so they can focus on running their business. By listening to and understanding the voice of the customer, financial services leaders can seize an opportunity to stand out amongst the competition and provide unparalleled service offerings.”
For more information about the BAI Banking Outlook survey results, or to watch the free webinar, visit https://www.bai.org/conferences-events/webinar.
About BAI
As a nonprofit, independent organization, BAI has delivered the financial services industry’s most actionable insights for more than 95 years, helping leaders make smart business decisions every day. We provide in-depth, proprietary research to more than 40 of the top US banks, support more than 2,100 financial services organizations with compliance and professional development training, provide trusted, relevant thought leadership through BAI Banking Strategies reports, podcasts and webinars, and offerspecialized events and programs. For more information, visit www.bai.org.
