The changing trend in marketing of financial services: an empirical study on bank performance in Nigeria

The long years of marketing practices in the Nigerian banking industry has recorded low level standards relative to global standard practice. The effect on the overall industry performance measurable basically in terms of customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and brand equity has been on the negativity. In some cases, banks overall performance level was never assessed based on customer orientation, value and other customer related measures rather on some quick financial indicators. This poor orientation towards marketing has rather become a forgone especially in the banking area of financial services in Nigeria. This study was therefore conducted to examine the changing trend towards embracing marketing philosophy and the extent of the banks’ performance level in response to changing expectations of customers. Theoretical issues relating marketing, customer philosophy, financial marketing, customer loyalty, satisfaction, and brand equity were explored to establish the key performance variables and the existing relationships amongst them. Empirical study was equally carried out with the use of questionnaire, administered on randomly selected banks’ customers and management staff. Data collected were analyzed on the basis of critical measures which include customer awareness, market sensitivity to financial delivery, customer profile and sophistication through the use of Spearman Rank Correlation Coefficient. The result among other things shows that there is a significant relationship between the new trend towards marketing orientation, financial services in the banking industry and performance level. Based on this study, we recommend improved marketing performance and training to enhance service delivery, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty across all banks in the geographical places of the Nigerian financial markets.