THE 4 I’s OF BANK MARKETING

There are four distinctive characteristics of service, which create challenges and
opportunities. They are commonly known as the four I’s namely:

· Intangibility
· Inconsistency
· Inseparability
· Inventory

Intangibility
It is that characteristics of a service indicating that it has no physical attributes that a person
may feel, hear, taste before they buy it.
For example, a person who is new to a bank and wants to open up an account in the bank
cannot feel or taste it and ascertain whether the bank is good or bad before opening an
account. He has to experience it, feel how the service is, how humbly do people or the staff
members behave with him, is his money invested or put in a safe account or not. It is only
then he would come to know about the services. This could be done only from the ‘trust’ that
he would have built up, as these things cannot be inspected before the use. Therefore, most
banks now a days, indulge in “tangibilizingthe intangibles” i.e. they provide tangible clues to
the prospective customers like the different awards that they have received for their superior
services, their annual records, etc. this helps the customers in selecting the banks more easily.

Inconsistency
It refers to variability or heterogeneity. In case of a bank, a new customer or a rarely going
customer may not get the same type of service as a regular customer may get.
This may be the case because the staff members know the person well as he comes often but
they don’t know that person who does not come in again and again. Also another point for
inconsistency is that there is variability in the service delivered by different people, that is,
services delivered differs from people to people. Like in case of a bank, different staff
members would provide different services. In the bank, a person may have lot of work and
may not attend to a customer .On the other hand, some other person with the same work may
attend him with great enthusiasm. In order to tackle this inconsistency aspect, adequate
training and motivation must be provided to the employees. This will result in higher number
of customers for the bank, higher profits and subsequently lower retention rate.
Eg. “PUNJAB NATIONAL BANK” prides itself for providing “crown of quality for
customer who is the king” and is an ISO 9002 certified bank. Thus, they will have to ensure
that their service quality level is always consistent and up to the mark to meet the tall
expectations of their customers.

Inseparability
Inseparability is that characteristics of a service indicating that it cannot be separated from
creator-seller of the product. Many services are created, delivered and consumed
simultaneously through interaction between customers and service producers. This is a source
of major limitation for the bank. But technology has in a big way helped the banks to cope
with this problem.
Production of services, when it comes to banks can be performed in the following 3 ways:
(i) Co- production: In this case both the service provider and the customer work together to
produce services. When a customer wants to withdraw cash from the banking premises, then
both the customer and the service provider needs to be present.
(ii) Isolated production: It is that part of service that is done outside to an organization.
Eg. Tele-Banking.
(iii) Self Service production: In this case, the customer uses the equipments of the service
providers and self serves it. Eg. ATM.

Inventory
Inventory relates to the perishable characteristics of the service marketing. If a customer
starts his day at eight in the morning and ends it at four, but if bank is open only from 9:00
a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in the afternoon, then one might not be able to attend it. The demand for
banking services also fluctuates by day and hour. The day before the holiday, weekend, most
Mondays and Saturdays, pension and salary days are heavier than normal banking hours. So
service faces a lot of problem from inventory as it cannot be stored, saved and then used later