Abstract:

Marketing research is playing an increasingly important role in corporate financial markets in the 1980's and is helping in the formulation of marketing strategy, in new product development and in advertising creative development and campaign evaluation. It is also beginning to be used more effectively to monitor the quality of service that banks and other financial institutions provide to their existing corporate customers, as a result of the greater emphasis banks now place on non-credit services, the growing competition and breakdown of barriers between financial institutions, the increasing professionalism of company financial management and its willingness to change long-standing relationships to improve the quality and value of banking services obtained. The paper shows how market research can play an important role in corporate financial markets by: A) Monitoring service quality and client satisfaction levels on an objective and comparative basis to provide early warning data on any areas of potential dissatisfaction, which allows financial institutions to act before business is lost; B) Indicating customer service needs and priorities and methods of selecting financial institutions to help in designing and marketing new financial services and in presenting these services to existing and potential corporate customers.