BB&T
Can you teach your cardholders a new trick?

North Carolina-based BB&T faced this question when it reviewed results from a mailing urging ATM debit card users to convert to the new Check Card product. Customers had been offered six months free use of a BB&T Check Card plus sweepstakes entries for converting to that new card. But despite the strong offer, response was below expectations.

Primary Research

Database Analysis

Target Audience Profiling

Product Development Consulting
Initial analysis showed that customers over age 55 were not making the switch to the Check Card. But BB&T suspected there were other factors at play than just age. So they turned to us to reveal exactly who was responding, why they were responding (or why not) and how they were using the card.

To find out the who — we used a combination of data analysis and segmentation tools. Segmenting the responders and nonresponders proved that age was not the overwhelming identifier of whether a customer would convert.

To find out the why and the how — we conducted focus groups with the different customer segments. The focus groups not only asked customers what they thought about the creative used for the conversion, but also their overall attitude about check/debit card usage, which not surprisingly, varied widely by customer segment. Those findings, combined with our analysis and segmentation results, allowed us to make specific recommendations to BB&T on creative strategy for top customer segments and on selecting the customer segments most likely to respond for the next conversion mailings.