Main factors of emotionally attached customers in retail banking of Latvia

Abstract

How the banking strategy in Latvia is changing? How can banks increase the number of active clients? Are banks in Latvia focusing to attract new clients or prefer to work with the existing client portfolio? How can the retail banking sector in Latvia impact the customer loyalty? The regulation developed by the Basel Committee and the regulations of The Financial and Capital Market Commission impacted the number of banks in Latvia and the number of active clients in retail banking. Latvian banks are getting more flexible in customer services and actively working to increase customer loyalty. If previously banks actively attracted the new clients to increase the number of customers, now banks are working to increase the number of active loyal clients. Only a totally complacent customer will be a loyal customer. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of customer emotional attachment on customer loyalty to the provided goods and services in the retail banking sector in Latvia. The authors used their developed questionnaire that was aimed to the main factors that can increase the customer loyalty. The profitability of each bank directly depends on customer loyalty and how many customers return for goods and services. The main object of loyalty is customer emotional attachment, which is the determining factor in decision making in retail banking. The customer’s emotions and feelings drive his/her choice. When banks interact with customers’ emotions, the income could be considerable. That is why it is significant to research customer emotions to create long term partnership in retail banking. Research methods used are clients’ survey in the retail banking sector in Latvia. The banks branding, the personality of produced goods and services, the customer experience and trust, the digitalization and innovation tendency are the factors that can emotionally attach the customer. All these factors, from the new product and services development till the daily provided, affect the customers’ value to the bank. As the main result, the strategic goal is to have emotional attached customers in retail banking of Latvia.