Women and the Financial Services Sector: What They Really Think
Sep 23rd, 2009 by David Svet
The financial sector is great with numbers. They collect more data than you can imagine. At Spur, we use it to customize communications for investors. Since no two investors are alike, we use what we know about them to create communications that are specific to their individual needs. We slice and dice market data for our clients like no one else — demographic, psychographic, behavioral data, investment profiles, risk tolerance indices, and so on. But, we don’t acknowledge men and women are different, and I think that is a costly mistake. The consequence is financial products and services aren’t structured to appeal to the decidedly different approach, lifestyle, and circumstances of women.
Michael J. Silverstein and Kate Sayre of the Boston Consulting Group have published an extensive research project on the subject in the book Women Want More: How to Capture Your Share of the World’s Largest, Fastest-Growing Market with a summary in the article The Female Economy in the September 2009 issue of Harvard Business Review. An abridged version of their survey is available to take here www.womenspeakworldwide.com.
Their take on the financial sector is, at best, damning. “Our survey respondents were scathing in their comments about financial institutions. They cited a lack of respect, poor advice, contradictory policies, one-size-fits-all forms, and a seemingly endless tangle of red tape that leaves them exhausted and annoyed.” This is primarily an uncanny lack of customer service, but in this case it is compounded by a lack of products that accommodate life events that are unique to women. Here are some things we have learned:
• Women spend time out of the work force lowering their potential benefits
• More likely to have a part time job and not qualify for a retirement plan
• Invest more conservatively than men
• Retire earlier than men
• Live on average 3 years longer than men
Given the size of the financial sector, it makes sense that there is money to be made by addressing these needs. In addition to products geared toward women, there are a host of investment and financial advisory opportunities that should also be addressed to answer the needs of women. Silverstein and Sayre identified the three core unmet needs as:
• Financial education
• Equal treatment with men
• Advisors that understand and cater to female life events outlined above
According to Dave Dougherty and Ajay Murthy from Convergys in What Customers Really Want, (HBR) there are some basic aspects of what Americans expect as good service that I believe would go a long way to helping establish financial relationships with women, “…U.S. customers chose knowledgeable front line workers and a one-call-and-done interaction above all other factors. Most respondents defined “knowledgeable” as able to “answer my questions without putting me on hold, searching for someone, or transferring me.”
Pretty basic service and civility aren’t too much to ask for, especially with a market that will earn $18 trillion.
