Personal Finance Tips » Personality

Credit Cards And Cross-Sell

admin — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 10:28:44 +0000

Of all the credit products that financial institutions can cross-sell to a new or existing customer, credit cards are the easiest. Why?

The most common analogy for credit cross-sell in the financial services industry is cross-sell in the fast food industry. Do you want fries with that? This question is perhaps the best example of cross-sell in its most fundamental and successful form. The decision on whether or not to add fries to my meal is one of the easiest decisions I’ll ever make. Why?

Well first off, fries are relatively small in size and cost compared to other items on the menu. Which means that the decision to add them or not will not produce very serious consequences either way. Additionally, most people find fries to be a delicious addition to their meal, which means that fries, as an economic product, have strong appeal to the average consumer. Finally, fries can be added to the meal automatically if the consumer wants to add them. This means that, in regard to the customer’s valuable time, there are no negative externalities to making the decision to add fries.

Now let’s apply the same logic that makes fries such an effective cross-sell product for fast food restaurants to credit cards and financial institutions.

Credit cards, when compared to other financial products such as mortgage loans, are a relatively small and financially insignificant decision for most consumers. Therefore, the decision to add another credit card to their wallet is a relatively easy decision for most consumers to make. Additionally, just like fries, credit cards can have tremendous appeal. This is especially true with credit cards that have benefits tailored to the individual’s specific passions and personality. A Boston Celtic’s credit card that enables the holder to get tickets to Celtic’s home games would be almost impossible for a Boston Celtics fan to resist. Lastly, the acceptance of a credit card offer and the subsequent booking and authorization processes can be instantaneous. This is important when cross-selling a product that the customer did not previously request, because any inconvenience in the process might cause the customer to just forget the whole thing.

Gaining credit card customers could be easy. With an enterprise decisioning system that can deliver instant credit card decisions, banks could enable their tellers to make realtime credit cross-sell offers to all of that bank’s new and existing customers. Why can’t every decision be as easy as, would you like fries with that?

Area rugs for your home

admin — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 08:44:12 +0000

We must want something represent our think and how we lives when anybody visit our home. Several people have a contemporary way of thinking, while some of us think in traditional ways. While shopping, you will find things home decoration, furniture, and other things that will reflect your personality to anyone who visits you at home.

One of the major furniture items are rugs that suit your needs in decorating your home. You can find cheap rugs and accent rugs that will go with your needs. You can set your house to be contemporary or traditional. You can change or complement the area rugs of your choice depending on your likes and dislikes. When you add a rug to your room, you are surely adding to the beauty and your room looks.

Generally people have the misconception those rug really high costs. But in reality, you do not need to set your budget too high to buy them. You should know that there is a fairly inexpensive is area rug furniture profitable option. Area rug is preferred by the majority of people to give their home a designer look.

You can revitalize and enhance the beauty and charm to change the whole house-living room, kids’ room, bedroom, living room, kitchen, and playroom. You also do not need to worry about the floor type. You can use the rugs on the floor which made from stone, ceramic, concrete materials, or even hardwood floors.

I bet you’ll wonder how you can find affordable rugs for your specific needs. Actually you can browse the site online and looking for vendors which offer you a good rug. You can easily get a good deal associated with cheap carpet through online research. Visit the different retailers and look into the customer reviews that will help you to take the right decision.

Does every state need its own Department of Insurance?

admin — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 14:43:44 +0000

Insurance is a slightly nonstandard business in that all the major regulatory functions are left to the individual US states. Federal government has decided to abandon its normal role as the regulator of business to protect the consumers’ rights. Such regulation as does exist is down to the political climate in each state and the will of the lawmakers to take on the economic power of the insurance industry. That said, all Departments of Insurance start off equal. Their primary function is to license companies to sell insurance in their state. Unlike other businesses, an insurance company is licensed state-by-state. No company can sell a policy across state lines. That means every national insurer must establish separate subsidiaries in each state and each company must hold a license. There are also minimum capital holdings set by the Department to protect the solvency of the local companies. There must always be enough money held by each company to pay out on the claims made. Some states require actual cash to be available. Others have a formula to prove the availability of money as required. But, for the most part, this is historical. The major players established their presence in multiple states years ago and newcomers moving across state lines are rare. In fact, the general lack of competition in state markets gives no incentive for companies to seek new licenses.

Once all the players hold their licenses, the personality of the Commissioners in charge comes to the fore. Many view their role as political either to run the Department with the lowest possible level of regulation or to be an effective watchdog to protect consumer rights. You can tell which way your local Department is run by logging on to your state’s website. Some sites are very pro consumer, offering detailed help and advice on how to buy insurance and get a good deal. But the key test lies in the way complaints are handled. Without exception, all Departments accept complaints from people holding policies. In theory, they should all investigate these complaints and apply a judicial process to decide whether the insurer is at fault and, if so, what the remedy should be. For example, Road Island has just imposed a fine of $5,000 on a leading insurer. Following a traffic accident, the insured wanted the repair work done at his regular auto body shop. This was refused by the insurer because the shop was not on their list of approved body shops. Local regulations drawn up by the RI Department allow the insured a free choice of repair facilities. The fine of $5,000 and publicity for it represents a small penalty in itself. But if there were many such fines, the cumulative bad publicity would damage this insurance company’s reputation and its market share would fall.

The best Departments are completely open about the complaints process, publishing details of the complaints, the identity of the insurance company and whether the complaints were upheld. When you are looking for cheap car insurance, this gives you an excellent guide to all the companies’ performance in selling policies and handling claims. Sadly, the majority of Departments do not identify the bad insurance companies by name. The worst do not publish any useful information about complaints. This leaves you in the dark when looking for cheap car insurance with a reliable company.