Dive Brief:
- Citizens launched a student hub on its website last week to offer holistic, personalized advice and resources for student customers, the bank announced Wednesday. The goal is to improve navigation and help build loyalty along the way.
- Citizens Student Hub combines its College Raptor insights with the bank's financial advice to offer such tools as a student loan calculator, savings calculator and scholarship search.
- “We want to be helping students and families navigate what is a very difficult and stressful life decision,” Chris Ebeling, EVP and head of student lending at Citizens, told CX Dive. “We want to be engaging with our customers on that before they even get a student loan. And so that's the differentiator: We're able to provide that advice and care for our customers holistically, in ways that our competitors aren't.”
Dive Insight:
Customers want more financial advice, and they’re looking to their banks to provide it. Citizens is addressing one customer cohort who faces a huge financial challenge: college and how to pay for it.
With college tuition costs skyrocketing and changes to federal student loan policy, students are looking for more guidance.
A J.D. Power survey from May found that more than one-quarter of bank customers are “very interested” in receiving bank advice or guidance. That number jumps to more than one-third for customers under the age of 40.
Banks that provide helpful financial tools and guidance can build trust and satisfaction — and long-lasting relationships with customers, according to Jennifer White, senior director for banking and payments intelligence at J.D. Power.
Citizen’s shifted its strategy from addressing student customers during their “moment of need” — that is figuring out how to pay for college once they get in — to offering students and their families a more holistic lens.
Earlier this year, the bank sent existing Citizens customers a monthly student newsletter with relevant student content and financial tools. More than half of recipients opened the letter, and during peak lending season, the bank saw more customers choose it for a loan.
“That really just goes to show the power of engaging your customers with really high quality content and tools that are free, no strings attached. It does generate loyalty. It does generate engagement,” Ebeling said.
The hub is a complement of that outreach, Ebeling said. It also organizes the products, advice and resources around students’ life stages.
“We've really focused so far on just generating better loyalty with our existing customers, deepening loyalty,” Ebeling said.
