Cross-selling in the financial sector: Customer profitability is key

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a growing trend in banks today and billions have already been spent on CRM systems. Financial service providers (FSPs) are, however, recognising the many challenges they face in implementing an enterprise CRM business strategy. This paper provides an overview of research work undertaken, in partnership with a major UK bank, to assess the validity of the ‘sales through service’ concept. The project aimed at identifying the requirements for a successful cross-selling system to provide an external input to the current initiative already underway at the bank. The paper aims to summarise the work undertaken to present what is believed to be a considerable gap between what CRM literature publishes and the actual implementation in ‘real-life’ organisations. It concludes with recommendations for developing the cross-selling initiative at the bank.