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Perception of Malayalee customers in Birmingham and Dubai towards cross-buying banks products:
Analysis of cross-selling activities in HSBC
Perception of Malayalee customers in

Birmingham and Dubai towards crossbuying banks products: Analysis ofcrossselling activities in HSBC
Dissertation submitted to Birmingham City University in

partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Business Administration

International Business
Prepared By
: LijoChirackalManavalan Varghese
Student ID
: S11531298
Submission Date: 31st August 2012
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title page................................................................................................................................i
Table of contents....................................................................................................................ii
List of Figures........................................................................................................................v
List of Abbreviations............................................................................................................. vi
Acknowledgement.................................................................................................................vii
Abstract.................................................................................................................................. viii
Chapter One Introduction................................................................................................... 1
1.0 Introduction........................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Background of the study....................................................................................... 1
1.2 Research Objectives.............................................................................................. 2
1.3 Rationale of the research....................................................................................... 2
1.4 Methodology......................................................................................................... 3
1.5 Limitations............................................................................................................ 3
Chapter Two Literature Review..........................................................................................4
2.0 Introduction...................................................................................................................... 4
2.1 Customer Retention and Cross-Buying............................................................................ 4
2.1.1 Customer Retention...................................................................................... .4
2.1.2 Customers perception towards cross-buying............................................... .5
2.1.3 Conceptual Model...........................................................................................5
2.1.3.1 Base models for the research.......................................................................8
2.1.4 Factors influencing customer retention.......................................................................... 9
2.1.4.1 Brand, firms reputation and expertise....................................................9
2.1.4.2 Service quality, satisfaction and customer retention...................................................9
2.1.4.3 Location convenience. ..............................................................................................10
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2.1.4.4Employees cultural similarity and Customer retention.............................................10

2.1.5
Factors influencing cross-buying...............................................................11
2.1.5.1 Product quality and cross-buying...........................................................11

2.1.5.2 Perceived convenience............................................................................11
2.1.5.3 Trust and Confidence..............................................................................11
2.1.5.4 Customers loyalty towards banks..........................................................12
2.1.5.5 Switching banks and multi-brand loyalty...............................................12
2.1.5.6 Customer relationship with bank............................................................ 13
2.2 Marketing Activities of banks........................................................................................... 13
2.2.1 Marketing Strategy......................................................................................................... 13
2.2.2 Market segmentation.......................................................................................................14
2.2.3 Focus on ethnic groups and cultures...............................................................................14
2.2.4 Branding and relationship..............................................................................................15
2.2.5 Demographic features.....................................................................................................15
2.2.6 Cross-selling activities of banks.................................................................15
2.3 Conclusion..............................................................................................................16
3. Chapter Three Research Methodology.............................................................................18
3.0 Introduction............................................................................................................18
3.1 Quantitative and qualitative research methods.......................................................18
3.2 Data collection........................................................................................................19
3.2.1 Primary data.................................................................................................20
3.2.2. Secondary data............................................................................................20
3.3 Questionnaire design...............................................................................................20
3.4 Sample method.......................................................................................................22
3.5 Data validity and reliability....................................................................................22
3.6 Limitations..............................................................................................................23
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3.7 Ethics in research....................................................................................................23

4. Chapter Four Research findings and analysis...................................................................24
4.0 Introduction.............................................................................................................24
4.1 Factors influencing customer retention and cross-buying......................................24
4.1.1 Customer retention........................................................................................33
4.1.2 Cross-buying from banks...............................................................................40
4.2 Analysis of HSBC banks cross-selling activities...................................................51
Chapter Five Conclusions and Recommendations................................................................55
5.1 Conclusion..............................................................................................................55
5.2 Recommendations..................................................................................................58
5.3 Limitations of the study..........................................................................................59
5.4 Future research direction........................................................................................60
List of References.....................................................................................................................62
Appendices................................................................................................................................67
Appendix One Questionnaire forwarded to Banking Customers (Questionnaire 1)..67
Commentary about the Questionnaire1..73
Appendix Two Questionnaire forwarded to HSBC bank (Questionnaire 2).78
Commentary about the Questionnaire1.78
Appendix Three Data gathered through Questionnaire 1..79
Appendix Four Data collected From HSBC bank through Questionnaire 2.82
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LISTOF FIGURES
Figure 2.1.....................................................................................................................................7
Figure 2.2.....................................................................................................................................8
Figure 2.3.....................................................................................................................................8
Figure 4.1...................................................................................................................................25
Figure 4.2...................................................................................................................................25
Figure 4.3...................................................................................................................................25
Figure 4.4...................................................................................................................................26
Figure 4.5...................................................................................................................................27
Figure 4.6...................................................................................................................................27
Figure 4.7...................................................................................................................................28
Figure 4.8...................................................................................................................................29
Figure 4.9...................................................................................................................................29
Figure 4.10.................................................................................................................................30
Figure 4.11.................................................................................................................................30
Figure 4.12.................................................................................................................................31
Figure 4.13.................................................................................................................................31
Figure 4.14.................................................................................................................................32
Figure 4.15.................................................................................................................................32
Figure 4.16.................................................................................................................................33
Figure 4.17.................................................................................................................................34
Figure 4.18.................................................................................................................................35
Figure 4.19.................................................................................................................................35
Figure 4.20.................................................................................................................................36
Figure 4.21.................................................................................................................................36
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Figure 4.22.................................................................................................................................37
Figure 4.23.................................................................................................................................38
Figure 4.24.................................................................................................................................39
Figure 4.25.................................................................................................................................39
Figure 4.26.................................................................................................................................40
Figure 4.27.................................................................................................................................40
Figure 4.28.................................................................................................................................41
Figure 4.29.................................................................................................................................41
Figure 4.30.................................................................................................................................42
Figure 4.31.................................................................................................................................43
Figure 4.32.................................................................................................................................43
Figure 4.33.................................................................................................................................44
Figure 4.34.................................................................................................................................44
Figure 4.35................................................................................................................................45
Figure 4.36.................................................................................................................................46
Figure 4.37.................................................................................................................................46
Figure 4.38.................................................................................................................................47
Figure 4.39.................................................................................................................................47
Figure 4.40.................................................................................................................................48
Figure 4.41.................................................................................................................................48
Figure 4.42.................................................................................................................................49
Figure 4.43.................................................................................................................................49
Figure 4.44.................................................................................................................................50
Figure 4.45.................................................................................................................................50
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
Malayalee Community- People from the Kerala state in India
UK- United Kingdom
UAE- United Arab Emirates
CRMS- Customer Relationship Management System
INR
- Individual Needs Review
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, I give glory to the Almighty God, for granting me the grace, mercy and aptitude to
complete this research.
I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor Dr. Chris Lewis for his quality guidance
and encouragement throughout this project.
Finally, I sincerely appreciate all the people participated in the research, for their kind
contribution to this research.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Banking customer shold certain perception towards the services of banks and this perception
can influence the banking activities. However, banks have to craft their plans and approaches
in the corporate and national level to become competitive in the industry. The study
investigated the perception of Malyalee community in Birmingham and Dubai towards
customer retention and cross-buying from banks. The study also tried to understand the crossselling activities of HSBC bank and how they utilise the views of Indian expatriates for
crafting their strategies.
Several literatures of significant studies have reviewed to understand the factors that are
associated with customer retention and cross-buying intentions. The conceptual framework
was created and performed with a critical evaluation of all the models and the factors included
in the conceptual model. This model included banks reputation and expertise, service quality,
satisfaction, employees cultural similarity and location convenience and tested the impact of
all these factors on customer retention. The association of factors such as banks reputation
and expertise, perceived convenience, trust, switching cost and product attributes with crossbuying are also thoroughly analysed. Banks marketing and cross-selling activities, their focus
on ethnic communities, branding and relationship marketing were critically examined through
literature review.
Research administered questionnaires to gather data from banking customers and HSBC bank.
Quantitative data from 61 participants from Birmingham and Dubai were collected and
included the response of a manager in HSBC bank Dubai, which was gathered as qualitative
data through a questionnaire. All these samples selected were self-selection samples and the
questionnaires were forwarded online. Research also made use of some secondary data to
strengthen the research. The views of customers from Birmingham and Dubai are analysed
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and compared to know the similarities and differences in their perceptions. The responses
from HSBC bank were also critically examined to generate positive recommendations.
The research revealed that banks reputation and expertise, service quality, satisfaction,
employees cultural similarity and location convenience have positive association with
customer retention. Cross-buying intentions of customers are positively influenced by banks
reputation and expertise, perceived convenience, trust, switching cost and product attributes.
Even many of the satisfied customers are getting annoyed by the improper product offering
methods but most of these satisfied customers trust their banks. The results of this study are
similar to some of the previous studies that tested the same hypothesis and factors in other
countries. This research proposes further research opening in the banking industry to test and
compare the same model in other countries.
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1. CHAPTER -ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Globalization has been creating a complete transformation on the world business structure for
the past few decades. In this present scenario, people from different cultures have mixed up in
almost all the regions in the world due to job opportunities in other countries. So in the
banking industry, in order to be very competitive, banks should craft separate business
strategies according to the needs and wants of people from different cultures. Expatriates from
different countries have perceptions towards the banking services; they would be receiving
from foreign banks that are international in nature. The influence of this perception of these
customers has been lifted up by the severe competition between the banks in the international
level. Expatriates have the opportunity to do business with multiple banks, in which they are
satisfied with.
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Indian expatriates living in UK and UAE, especially Malayalee Community from Kerala state
in India, are relatively large in number with sufficient income. According to UK labour force
survey 2006, there were 578600 Indian migrants worked in UK (mighealth). It is estimated
that about 1.4 million Indian expatriates residing in UAE and it is over 50% of the total work
force in UAE (Embassy of India), with a high contribution from Kerala people. Banks should
consider these expatriates as long term customers. So it is very significant to perform a
research to investigate about the factors, the Malayalees from Birmingham and Dubai
consider for retaining business with a bank and for cross-buying products from the same bank.
Several significant studies have been done to investigate the factors influencing the crossbuying intentions. Liu & Wu (2007) conducted a research in Taiwan, with the participation of
bank customers who had opened bank accounts. The study by Ngobo (2004) performed in
France analysed the factors, customers consider for retaining relationship with banks and
buying more products from the bank. These researches added value to researchers new
investigation to find the perceptions of Malayalee community towards banks activities.
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Researcher found the importance of analysing the banks services for the customers from this
particular group. Banks can improve financial performance by keeping a long term
relationship with these customers. Banks have their own strategies to do business with ethnic
groups. Banks try to cross-sell products that create maximum benefits, and it is significant to
investigate whether banks consider the view of customers for that. Within this context, as an
example the researcher analyses, whether HSBC bank cross-sell their products to the
Malayalee community by considering the expectations of these customers.
The selection of HSBC bank for the research worth, since the excellent performance of HSBC
bank in providing services such as commercial banking, investment banking and wealth
management for its customers enhanced its development in International level (HSBC, 2012).
The motive and interest behind this study is that researcher is a member of Malayalee
community and researcher can make use of the work experience in the financial service sector
for the benefits of this community and recommend the best possible ways to HSBC Bank and
other banks, for improving their relationship with customers.
1.2RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
The research has mainly four achievable objectives.
1) To investigate the factors that customers consider as important for retaining banking
with the current bank.
2) To understand the perception of customers towards Cross-Buying banks products.
3) Recognize the strategies that has been implemented by HSBC bank, for retaining
customers and for cross-selling its products.
4) To analyse whether HSBC bank make use of the perception of Indian Expatriates
towards banks activities, for retaining them and for cross-selling banks products.
1.3RATIONALE FOR THE RESEARCH

Banks are organizations responsible to serve the community, but basically have high power
over their customers (Dash, Bruning&Acharya, 2009). Ethnic minorities living in different
countries have their own views about the banking services. The results of the ample researches
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performed in some of the European and Asian countries clearly highlights the important
aspects, customer consider for retaining business with banks and cross-buying. This study
facilitates the banking customers from Malayalee community to express their expectations
about banking services. The perception of these customers towards customer retention and
cross-buying has a great impact on banks operations and services. This study is looking
forward to make some theoretical and practical propositions for banks and banking customers.
It is expected that the findings of this research facilitate an opportunity for banks to understand
about the expectations of Malayalee community, to segment this community and craft
marketing strategies specifically for them. Banks can evaluate their existing methods, used for
product offering, customer retention and cross-selling. This would be an opening for banks to
successfully compete in the banking industry and keep these customers loyal, for long term.
1.4METHODOLOGY
This is a concise form of the proposed methodology for this dissertation. To successfully
achieve the objectives of this research, it is intend to collect quantitative data from banking
customers using questionnaire. The research will also gather qualitative data from banks about
their marketing activities and cross-selling strategies, using questionnaire with open ended
questions. The support of relevant secondary data can improve the quality of the research
analysis.
1.5 LIMITATIONS
Researcher is concerned about the anticipated limitations of the study. The first limitation is
expected to be due to usage of self-selection sample, which may lead to biased responses. The
researcher only got the approval for sending questionnaire to HSBC bank, not for an interview,
which will affect the quality of information from the bank.
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2. CHAPTER TWO - LITERATURE REVIEW

2.0 INTRODUCTION
This chapter tries to ascertain an understanding of the literature and the major factors that
drive the behaviour of customers for retaining business with banks and cross-buying financial
products from banks. This chapter also performs a critical analysis of the literatures that
describe the marketing and cross-selling strategies of banks.
The important modules covered in the first section of literature review are the influence of
brand on customers, firms reputation and expertise, service quality and satisfaction, which are
considered to be the important aspects for customer retention in banks. The literature review
discussed the customers trust and confidence on banks, customers attractions towards banks
innovative products, switching costs, customers relationship with banks, loyalty towards
banks and multi-brand loyalty, which are known to be the main factors customers consider for
cross-buying.
The second section of the literature review, basically discussed about the marketing and crossselling activities of banks. The literatures that discussed about the branding and marketing
strategies of banks, the segmentation process and relationship banking with the ethnic groups
are extremely integrated in this chapter.
2.1 CUSTOMER RETENTION AND CROSS-BUYING

2.1.1Customer Retention
Customers purchase of financial services is based on some important features of customer
behaviour and they consider their own experience and the experience of others in decision
making (Farquhar &Meida, 2010). Customer retention is the measurement of the continuation
of relationship (Liu & Wu, 2007) and appears as the result of recurring decisions by clients.
Kassim&Souiden (2007) discussed the demonstration of customer retention in many ways,
which is to prefer a bank over others and continue business with it or enhancing the deals with
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the company in the future with frequent purchasing. The factors influencing the customer
retention are analyzed in details in this literature review.
2.1.2 Customers perception towards Cross-Buying

Cross-buying can be explained as the customers interest of accepting additional products
from the existing financial service provider (Ngobo, 2004) and cross-buying can be mainly
achieved by extending the firms relationship with its customers (Liu & Wu, 2007).Kumar et
al(2008) analysed the drivers for cross-buying with help of the study by Verhoef et al., (2001)
and found the motives as customers perception and attitude towards an organization and its
products, socio-demographic characteristics and the marketing effort by the firm.
Perception of customers on services varies and it can be the perception on a single transaction
as well as the overall perception towards a bank. Zeithaml, Bitner&Gremler(2009). Kumar et
al., (2008) suggests that cross-buying intentions of customers depends on some factors like
customers interest on the brand, perceived service quality and the offered value for the
products. Kumar et al., (2008) say that the total cost can be reduced by one-stop shopping,
which influence the customers for cross-buying. Trust and confidence gained by the customers
on the brand and the products are aspects to cross-buy.
2.1.3 Conceptual Model

Many important studies had performed to identify and analyse the factors that influence the
customer retention and cross-buying behaviour of customers. The study conducted by Ngobo
(2004) in France with the participation of 257 clients of major retailing banks in France,
revealed the relation of customers cross-buying with the high quality services for different
service actions, customer satisfaction, image conflicts, switching cost and the convenience
received for cross-buying.
Another research conducted by Liu & Wu (2007) in Taiwan, by participating 470 individuals
who had savings accounts with banks, which mainly focused on customer retention and crossS11531298
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buying in banking sector. Liu & Wu (2007) found that the aspects such firms location,
satisfaction, convenience of single time shopping, firms reputation and expertise were significant
for retaining business with the banks. The intentions of cross-buying were based on firms
reputation and expertise and customers trust on the banks.
Herjanto& Gaur (2011) disclose that customers also consider the cultural similarity of the
banks and the sales person for maintaining the relationship. Since the research is basically
performed with the participation of Indian expatriates living in Birmingham and Dubai, author
is interested to find out the significance of cultural similarity of employees on customer
retention.
Although little has been done to investigate the impact of product attributes and customers
cross-buying behaviour, Liang & Wang (2004) states the value of product attributes in creation
of customer satisfaction with the support of research conducted in Taiwan. By considering this
study author is testing the influence of product attributes on cross-buying in banking industry.
However, the conceptual model for this study has been developed, with the support of these
above mentioned researches. All the major aspects selected from other studies are critically
evaluated in the literature review to highlight the significance of each factor in this particular
context.
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Conceptual Model
LOCATIONAL
SERVICE QUALITY
CUSTOMER
RETENTION
SATISFACTION
CULTURAL
FIRM'S
REPUTATION
PRODUCT
ATTRIBUTES
PERCEIVED
CONVENIENCE
CROSS-BUYING
TRUST
SWITCHING COST
Figure: 2.1Factors influencing customer retention and cross-buying in banking industry.
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2.1.3.1Base models for the research

The conceptual model for this research was developed mainly by critically evaluating the
studies by Ngobo (2004) and Liu & Wu (2007).
Figure 2.2: Conceptual Model created by Ngobo(2004) to identify the customers crossbuying intentions.
Figure 2.3:Conceptual Model used by Liu & Wu (2007) to investigate about customer
retention and cross-buying.
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2.1.4Factors influencing customer retention

2.1.4.1 Brand, Firms Reputation and Expertise
Brand is a strong symbol that pushes the customer to purchase goods and services
(Papasolomou&Vrontis, 2006) and the reliance on the same brand will be high for the
customers (Farquhar &Meidan, 2010). This habit of purchase can be assured by keeping
successful brand relationship (Petruzzellis, 2011), which can be achieved through customer
experience and brand knowledge. Tong (2012) states that brand image can be considered as a
switching barrier for the customers.
The reputation of a firm (Liu & Wu, 2007) can be the degree to which a customer feels a
service provider showing the honesty and loyalty towards its customers. Reputation helps
service providers to maintain relationship with customers. Bontis& Booker (2007) reveal the
positive association of customer satisfaction with the corporate reputation.
The level to which a customer recognize sales person to have the required knowledge and
skills to offer products to customers is described as firm expertise (Liu & Wu, 2007). In
contrast to the previous view, Jamal & Anastasiadou (2007) found the result of their study
conducted in Greece that the firms expertise is negatively related to customer loyalty. They
realized the customer switching due to the higher expertise level.
2.1.4.2 Service Quality, Satisfaction and Customer Retention

Studies proved that quality perceived by the customer for a product or service and satisfaction
have effect on the repurchase or cross-buying of financial products (Awan et al., 2011). But
there are variations in the views of authors in explaining the relation between service quality
and customer satisfaction. Awan et al., (2011) and Jham& Khan (2009) explained customer
satisfaction is the result of comparison of customer anticipation and the actual attitude after
using the product or service. Awan et al., (2011) cited the concepts of LeBlanc and Nguyen
(1988) to project that the level of customer satisfaction is a factor, which generates the
perceived service quality for a customer. In contrary to the above concept, another view by
Petruzzellis(2011); Yao(2011) that the perceived quality by customer can increase the degree
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of satisfaction, and this idea is supported by Ngobo(2004), says that the perceived value
through service quality from firms leads to customer satisfaction.
Kumar et al., (2008) used the study of Verhoef et al., (2001) to state that there is no impact of
differences in satisfaction from multiple firms and the cross-buying intentions of customers.
And analysis of customer satisfaction cannot be done only on the basis of service quality, since
other non-quality dimensions such as needs, equity and self-esteem can create satisfaction in
customers (Awan et al., 2011). These literatures does not make clear that which aspects mostly
lead to customer satisfaction and many of the researches had been performed by using the
most accepted feature service quality for analysing customer satisfaction.
2.1.4.3 Location convenience

Location convenience for customers is the perceived level of duration and effort needed to
reach a financial service provider (Liu & Wu, 2007).Liu & Wu (2007) state the direct impact
of location convenience on customer retention. Dusuki and Abdullah (2007) described the
Malasian banking customers selection and retention of banks according to the location
convenience. The findings of the research by Jones, Mothersbaugh& Beatty(2003) were against
the previously mentioned view and state that location convenience did not have an impact on the
repurchase intentions of customers in the financial industry
2.1.4.4 Employees cultural similarity and customer retention

Customers are interested to do business with banks that hold employees of customers own
culture (Herjanto& Gaur, 2011).The similarity of the bank personal in appearance, language,
religion and the social and economic class with the customers make them more relaxed to
amplify the level and number of interaction, which ultimately direct to customer satisfaction.
One of the important studies by Woodside &Devenport (1974) states the impact of similarity in
appearance of sales person and the purchase intentions of customers.
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2.1.5Factors influencing cross-buying

2.1.5.1 Product Quality and cross-buying
Customers will purchase new innovative as well as existing products according to the
convenience in purchase, reliability of the product, flexibility, security and easiness of usage
(Marfo-Yiadom, 2012). For instance some customers prefer to cross-buy single as well as
some hybrid insurance products from banks because of the simplicity of products
(Konstantinos, Ioannis&Madalini, 2004). But customers are expected to know about the
product quality, features and availability (Petruzzellis, 2011), banks should define the product
features, differentiation and provide training for using some products to ensure the product
awareness for customers. Papasolomou-Doukakis& Kitchen (2004) say, the chances of
switching the product are high, if the customers are not fully convinced about the quality of
the product.
2.1.5.2 Perceived Convenience

The convenience of one-stop shopping is significant that many clients, who seeks the easy and
cheap method to get the products from the same source (Liu & Wu, 2007). Ngobo(2004) says
the customers are expected to receive the products faster and easier through cross-buying. The
interest of Malasian customers to do business with banks, according to the convenience
created by banks was explained by Dusuki and Abdullah (2007). Customers focused at the
location convenience, convenience and comfort in the office, the product price and overall cost
to retain the bank.Maenpaa&Voutilainen (2011) reveal that the SME customers were not
convinced with the benefits of one-stop shopping convenience offered by banks using their
combined offerings.
2.1.5.3Trust and Confidence

Trust is important in customer relationship and building long term relationship by banks with
its customers minimizes defection levels, reduces cost and maximizes the revenues (Harrison,
2003). Trust can be established and maintained by creating confidence in customers, by
reducing the perceived risk for customers and through communication (Harrison, 2003) with
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consistency and integrity (Adamson, Chan &Handford, 2003). Howcroft& Hamilton (2007)
states that customers involvement, also the interaction between the bank and customers can
increase confidence in the customers in three different levels. Firstly motivates the person
towards that product, secondly create interest in the differentiable characteristics of that
product and finally increases the significance of product in that particular situation. The
confidence of the customer in their ability can be increased by their participation, which helps
them to purchase the good financial products.
Adamson, Chan, &Handford (2003) say that many Hong Kong based banks, including HSBC
have identified the importance of building trust by relationship marketing and diversifying into
personal banking from their conventional style of operations, which was highly corporate and
commercial.
2.1.5.4Customers loyalty towards Bank

Insurance is a vital product for the banks and other financial organizations, so in relation to
this literature, Konstantinos et al., (2004) reveal cross-selling insurance products, entirely
depends on the interest and needs of customers and banks cannot even change this with their
aggressive style of selling. Tong (2012) insists that loyalty of customers towards banks is
getting reduced due to the chance of maintaining accounts with multiple banks, and customers
seek banks that are service loyal and this notion is supported by Dutta&Dutta (2009). Satisfied
customers are mostly loyal to the banks (Tong, 2012). The loyalty of customers towards a
bank is also determined by the cost to switch (Zeithaml, Bitner&Gremler, 2009) the products
or banks.
2.1.5.5 Switching Banks and Multi-Brand Loyalty

The execution of firms strategy may disturb their customers and can move to others, if they
perceive the service quality does not meet their expectations. This concept is been supported
by Sajtos&Kreis (2010) and states that customers shift from single-provider to multi-provider
by considering financial and other relational factors such as satisfaction and switching cost.
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Tong (2012) used the concepts of (Beerli et al, 2004) to reveal that customers become more
unwilling to switch to another bank due to the complexity they feel. Switching cost is known
to be one of the reasons to hold dissatisfied customers from switching banks. Colgate & Hedge
(2001) explains the reasons for the switching the firms such as pricing, inconvenience, failures
in core services, service encountering and services recovery and does not explains switching
cost as a motive for switching banks.
2.1.5.6 Customer Relationship by Banks

Banks have to maintain long-term relationship with the customers to increase the satisfaction,
which result in loyalty and repurchases (Martin-Consuegra, Molina & Esteban, 2006). Chantal
Rootman, Tait& Bosch (2008) reveal that bank customers consider the attitude of the
employee in performing the transaction and knowledge of the bank employee in building the
relationship with the banks. Also the customers expectation for benefits from the banks will
be high (Martin-Consuegra, Molina & Esteban, 2006) as the result of good relationship.
However Huang & Chia-Yu (2005) cited Kambil and Nunes(2001) to suggests that customers
show doubts and even negative feeling towards the personalization in banking sector. More
over the application of personalization is complex for large number of customers, since it is
difficult to spend much time on single customer and understand their personal needs.
2.2MARKETING ACTIVITIES OF BANKS

2.2.1 Marketing Strategy
There are mainly three competitive marketing strategies used by the banks such as defensive
strategy, offensive strategy and rationalization (Farquhar &Meidan, 2010). Offensive strategy
was commonly used by the banks and experiencing a shift due to the changing economic
conditions. Lymperopoulos (2008) states that banks marketing strategy should be proactive
and the price elasticity can be reduced by focusing on quality in service, satisfaction for
customers and customer loyalty. Banks need to analyse their strategic elements such as
technology, bank assurance services and other services that can add value for the customers.
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Strategy to increase the quality to these services can improve banks overall performance by
cross-selling products, creating employee and thus customer satisfaction (Lymperopoulos,
2008). Papasolomou-Doukakis& Kitchen (2004) reveal that competition between banks
happened through product features, differentiation strategy and also by establishing brand
loyalty.
2.2.2 Market Segmentation

Cameron, Cornish, & Nelson (2006) emphasize the drivers of segmentation in financial
services. They are motives of demand, consumption of financial services and attitudes and
values hold by the customers. The segmentation has to be done individually and in the house
hold level but the performance of the segmentation will be reduced without key data of the
customers. Meadows &Dibb (1998) disclose the claim of many banks that they used
segmentation as a means for discriminating profitable and non-profitable customers. Some
banks even did not attempt to maintain the unbeneficial customers. Meadows &Dibb(1998)
argue that banks can easily collect the necessary information of clients and need to target the
customers desires requirements.
2.2.3 Focus on Ethnic Groups and Cultures

Chaudhry& Crick (2004) disclose HSBC banks marketing strategy towards the ethnic Asian
groups. HSBC bank had given the priority to fulfil the needs of Indian and Chinese
communities and the strategy was to target on sub-cultures in those countries. HSBC bank
tried to keep personalized relationship with the customers. Creation of this strong relationship
between employee and customer has been influenced by the national culture of buyer, and the
sub-cultural aspects such as power distance, uncertainty level, individualism/collectivism and
masculinity/feminism (Herjanto& Gaur, 2011). Buyers from these ethnic cultures perform
some assessment on the current experience from the bank and also some enquiry with the
other members. Bankers have to realize this important period of perception building process.
Dash, Bruning&Acharya (2009) states that allocation of service quality factors in banking
sector has been influenced by the customers cultural values. At the same time Dash,
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Bruning&Acharya (2009) cited Donthoo and Yoo(1998) to say that in most of the cases banks
have high power over their customers. Indian people keep high power distance and banks
should identify the factors such as tangibles time (Dash, Bruning&Acharya ,2009), empathy
and reliability to create satisfaction in Indian customers (Dutta&Dutta, 2009).
2.2.4 Branding and Relationship

Banks have already realized that branding drives the customers interest in purchasing
products. UK retail banking performs internal marketing with the help of employees to create
brand awareness and brand differentiation to the employees (Papasolomou&Vrontis, 2006).
The idea of Petruzzellis (2011) agrees this view and suggests that customers commitment and
loyalty towards a brand can be achieved by good relationship, rewards and with better product
offers. Lymperopoulos, Chaniotakis&Soureli (2006) highlight the importance of keeping
customer relationship and suggest it as a crucial element of marketing strategy. A long-term
relationship with customers enables bank to get the detailed and valuable information about
the customers to segment and target the customers. A research conducted by Hanson, Robison
& Siles (1996) reveal that the aim of performing advertising and personalization is to build a
perception on the customers that banks care the people of the community.
2.2.5 Demographic Features

Based on other studies Konstantinos et al., (2004) says that there are aspects such as
customers income, education, life cycle; age and gender have impact of customers desire of
buying multiple products from financial firms. Even though banks know the importance to
mould their activities based on the views and interests of customers, they have to follow
strategies that creates maximum benefits to them.
2.2.6Cross-selling Activities of Banks

Liang (2008) found the direct relation between the perception of customers and financial
performance of a financial service provider through cross-selling products. This occurs mainly
by retaining the customers who are loyal and encouraged them to cross-buy products by
creating customers confidence on the activities of the financial service provider. Ngobo
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(2004) support this aspect and says banks should consider the perceptions of customers
towards their products, while offering multiple products. In contrarily to the above concept
Kumar et al.,(2008) suggests that banks generally identify the potential customers from their
existing customer data base for cross-selling, also consider characteristics of products and
customers, firms marketing efforts and exchange characteristics. Banks perform these
activities by giving focus to their own strategy to cross-sell the products than giving attention
to the customer interests.
Ngobo (2004) explains that success of the cross-selling is based on the strength of internal
activities and the acceptance of customers for cross-buying from the same financial firm. The
same concept is being explained by Kumar et al.,(2008) says the chances for improving the
effectiveness of cross-selling of products is according to the identification of factors that
motivate the customers to cross-buy the products, also by the efficient marketing activities.
Customers expect valuable and beneficial services from banks (Ngobo, 2004) and it is really
important to make new products and strategic alliances with other financial service providers
to provide the facility of one-stop shopping (Liu & Wu, 2007).
2.3CONCLUSION
Banks judge retaining customers as their strength to improve their overall performance.
Customers are different in nature, characteristics and with their possession; they think and
interpret the activities of these firms in different ways. Customers make use of their
perceptions towards banking activities to select and retain banks and to buy more products
from the same bank.
Several important studies have been done in different countries to identify and analyse the
aspects of customer retention and cross-buying. The research conducted by Liu & Wu (2007) in
Taiwan, by participating 470 individuals, who had savings accounts with banks and t he study
conducted by Ngobo (2004) in France with the participation of 257 clients of major retailing
banks in France, tried to investigate the factors that influence the customer retention and crossbuying behaviour of customers. Soureli& Lewis (2008) study was performed in Greece,
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participated 316 real customers to investigate the impact of some factors on customers crossbuying intentions.
The study conducted in UAE by Kassim&Souiden (2007), selected a convenient sample of

600 banking customers to examine the customer retention process. Hong and Lee (2012)
performed the investigation to bring out the main aspects of cross-buying intentions of the
customers from collectivistic cultures.
Even though there were several studies performed related to this research topic, no research
was conducted to understand the interests of Indian Expatriates, mainly Malayalee community.
So it is very significant to fill the existing research gap and to understand the perception of
Malyalee community towards retaining business with their banks and cross-buying. The
research is conducting with the participation of banking customers from Birmingham and
Dubai. This research provides an opportunity for Malayalee community to express their needs,
interests and perception towards banking activities.
Banks are firms which carries high responsibility to serve the community, while achieving the
financial strength. So the effort of Chaudhry& Crick (2004) to identify HSBC banks
marketing strategies towards the Asian Ethnic cultures contributed knowledge to the
academics. The attempt to analyse the way in which HSBC bank craft their strategies for
doing business with the Malaylee community in Birmingham and Dubai, add great value to
this research.
3. CHAPTER THREE RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

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3.0 INTRODUCTION
Different forms of research methods are suggested by academics for performing successful
researches. This chapter discusses various approaches that the researcher had used for
conducting the research work and the justification for the application of those methodologies.
This research used a mixed application of both quantitative and qualitative research methods.
Researcher collected primary data using questionnaires, also collected relevant secondary data
to support the research (Saunders et al., 2009).
The main achievable objectives of this research are listed below.
4) To analyse whether HSBC bank make use of the perception of Indian Expatriates
towards banks activities, for retaining them and for cross-selling banks products.
Research methodology chapter is developed by consider the best ways to achieve the
objectives.
3.1 QUANTITATIVE AND QULAITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS

Quantitative data are output of research strategies and the application of data varies from
counting some frequencies to multifaceted statistical comparisons (Saunders et al., 2009;
Creswell, 2009). Quantitative data may not always ensure the meaning which is expected but
the quantitative data collected for this research was useful and provided meaning to the
figures.
Saunders et al., (2009) reveal that qualitative data should be used to provide meaning for more
uncertain, flexible concepts. Qualitative data are collected as non-standardised data, which are
classified and analysed later. The analysis part mainly includes summarising, categorising and
structuring the collected data.
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The participants of this research are the banking customers from Birmingham, Dubai and one
manager from HSBC bank Dubai. In order to achieve the first and second objectives of this
study, that is to understand the view of customers about retaining the bank and cross-buying
products from the same bank; author used a self-administered questionnaire to collect the
responses quantitatively. Saunders et al., (2009) explained that the application of questionnaire
for collecting opinions or attitudes will facilitate the researcher to identify and explain the
variation in different incidents.
In the second part of the research, for accomplishing the research objectives three and four,
that is to collect a detailed information about the marketing approaches and cross-selling
activities of HSBC bank, qualitative data were gathered from the HSBC bank manager using a
questionnaire that included open ended questions. Even though s emi-structured oneone
interview with many HSBC bank managers from Birmingham and Dubai was the best option for
data collection from HSBC bank, the inaccessibility to the senior employees for the interview
forced the researcher to forward questionnaire to only one manager in Dubai.
3.2 DATA COLLECTION

Data can be collected for researches from primary and secondary sources in the form of
primary and secondary data. Many valid documents such as Government publications,
previous research or any service records can be used as secondary sources. Primary data can
be collected with different methods such as Observation, Interviewing and Questionnaire
(Kumar, 2005).
3.2.1 Primary Data

Research was based on the customers perception towards services of banks and therefore a
primary data collection was necessary to achieve the objectives. Even though, for this study,
researcher was not experienced in primary data collection process, availability of reliable and
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valid data from a reasonably strong sample, boosted confidence of the researcher to perform
the primary data collection. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected through
questionnaires.
3.2.2 Secondary Data

Kumar (2005) categorizes the secondary sources of data collection mainly as Government or
semi-government publications, previous research, personal information and Mass media.
Kumar (2005) also reveals the disadvantages of secondary data. There might be problems in
the validity and reliability of secondary data collected.
The merits and demerits of using primary and secondary data for this research had been
analysed and focused mainly on the primary data collection sources. Questionnaires were used
to collect primary data from both banking customers and one bank manager, also made use of
HSBC banks website and other relevant information sheet from HSBC as secondary data.
3.3 QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN

Saunders et al. (2009) suggest that questionnaires can be used for descriptive research which
includes attitude and opinion questionnaires and to understand the organizational approaches.
Research used self-administered questionnaires (Saunders et al., 2009) for understanding the
view of banking customers about cross-buying financial products. Firstly, for analysing the
attitudes of customers on services, researcher used rating questions to get the necessary data.
This questionnaire was mainly included with Likert-style rating scale questions and some
category questions (Saunders et al., 2009).
Finally for collecting the response of HSBC bank on their cross-selling activities, researcher
made use of a questionnaire with only open-ended questions to get detailed information on
the particular aspect.
An online survey method Google Document was utilized for creating questionnaires to gather
data. Two questionnaires were created, the first one for collecting the views of banking customers
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and the second questionnaire for gathering information from HSBC bank. The permission to use
the e-mail addresses of the participants was collected through telephony conversation and emails.The web links of the questionnaires were then forwarded through e-mail along with a
covering letter to the focused respondents in Dubai and Birmingham and HSBC bank in
Dubai. This online method facilitated an opportunity to reach more number of respondents.
The proper and regular follow-up through telephone calls and e-mails helped the researcher to
achieve a good response rate for a successful research, within the limited time period.
Some of the most important questionsfrom questionnaire ONEis included in the methodology
chapter. All the details of questionnaire ONE and questionnaire TWO with the supporting
studies are included in the Appendices.
Question 9: My banks reputation and expertise create interest to continue with the bank.
Liu & Wu (2007) researched the relationship of location convenience, firm reputation and firm
expertise with customer retention and confirmed that there is a direct relationship between them.
Question 13: Overall, I am satisfied with my bank and I expect to use this bank in future.
Ngobo(2004) studied the relationship of service quality and satisfaction with the repurchase
intentions.Liu& Wu(2007) also states that there is a positive relation between satisfaction and
customer retention.
3.4 SAMPLE METHOD

The self-selection sampling method was used (Saunders et al., 2009) for selecting the
participants for the survey, which gathered customers view on cross-buying. Self-selection
sampling is a non-probability sampling technique and researcher had published the needs to
the respondents by e-mails and telephone and requested them to participate in the survey.
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From the responded people, 60 customers were selected from Birmingham and included 50
participants from Dubai for the research. The main advantages due to self-selection sampling
are the choice of employed customers, participation of enough male and females and a fixed
sample size for the research.
Researcher targeted the participants as the Malayalee community from Indian Expatriates,
who living in Birmingham and Dubai. For completing the second section of the research,
according to the convenience, permission was taken from one manger from HSBC bank to
forward a questionnaire. Main aspects considered for selecting these fixed sample sizes
include the time constraints, the need of quick results (Saunders et al., 2009), the confidence
to test the research results and to maintain the accuracy level for the research (Kumar, 2005).
The data validity is considered to be high, since the participants from targeted group have
sufficient income, regularly performs banking transactions and had the previous experience of
cross-buying from banks.
The disadvantage of using non-probability sample is that the findings cannot be generalized to
the total sampling population and the accessible individual may not truly represent the total
sample population.
3.5 DATA VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY

There are mainly three types of validity to be considered for a research (Saunders et al., 2009;
Kumar, R., 2005). They are mainly content validity, predictive validity and construct validity.
Saunders et al. (2009) state that internal validity of a research is the capability to appraise the
intended output, which can be achieved either through questionnaires. The predictive validity
of the research is very low since the research does not focussed entirely on the future activities
of customers and banks to predict the real outcome. Research examined the contribution of
different factors that motivates the customers for cross-buying bank products and calculated a
high variance towards the construct.
Kumar (2005) says that the reliability of a research tool is the consistency and the stability in
predicting accurate data for achieving the objectives. Saunders et al. (2009); Kumar (2005)
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suggests the main approaches to determine the reliability of data collection tool. They are
test-re-test approach, internal consistency approach and alternative form approach.
3.6 LIMITATIONS
The responses from the self-selection sample, which includes the friends and relatives of
researcher, might generate a biased view. The responses might not be true, but exaggerated to
demonstrate their strength on their opinions. HSBC bank responded to the questions related to
their present marketing strategies and researcher doubts the chances of amendments by bank,
in their responses.
The application of questionnaire instead of semi-structured one-one interviews, affected the
coverage and quality of the collected data from HSBC bank that ultimately reflected on the
final objectives. The incapability of the researcher to perform the test re-test and alternative
form approaches (Saunders et.al., 2009; Kumar, 2005) for ensuring the reliability of research,
limited its reliability and validity.
3.7 ETHICS IN RESEARCH

Research ethics are related to the questions about how we formulate and clarify our research
topic, design our research and gain access, collect data, process and store our data, analyse data
and write up our research findings in a moral and responsible way (Saunders et.al., 2009 : 184).
The personnel information and research data collected from the participants have been highly
private, protected and can be destroyed immediately after the necessary period. The participants
have had the right to withdraw the complete information if necessary. The research survey would
be completed inside the Birmingham City Universitys ethical procedures.
4 CHAPTER FOURRESEARCH FINDINGS AND DATA ANALYSIS

4.0INTRODUCTION
The primary data collected using the questionnaire and the secondary data gathered are examined
to test the conceptual model created for this research. Author refers to the relevant sections of
literature review to compare its results with the findings of the previous studies.
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Two questionnaires were created using the Google Documents and the web links were forwarded
to collect the responses. First questionnaire was used to gather the views of banks customers
about cross-buying products. This questionnaire included 23 relevant questions to get the answers
to achieve the research objectives. The questionnaire had sent to a convenient group of
respondents, about 110 from Dubai and Birmingham.
A questionnaire with 10 valid questions was used to gather the response from HSBC bank, Dubai.
Even though HSBC bank only answered SIX questions, their responses included answers for all
the 10 questions and the support of relevant secondary data had improved the credibility of the
analysis of HSBC banks cross-selling activities. Microsoft office was used to represent and
analyse the collected data.
4.1 FACTORS INFLUENCING CUSTOMER RETENTION AND CROSS-BUYING

The research intensely analyses all the 23 questions from the First questionnaire to interpret
the factors customers consider for retaining banks and cross-buying products. From the overall
61valid responses, the participation of customers from Birmingham was 34 and 27 participants
responded from Dubai.
However, the charts below show that there were 21 male customers and 13 female customers
from Birmingham and 17 males and 10 females participated in the research, which enhances
the strength of the research.
Question 1: Please specify your gender. Below shown figures are responses to Question 1 in
the questionnaire.
Customers from Birmingham
38%
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Male
Female
Customers from Dubai

37%
63%
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Male
Female
Figure 4.1 and 4.2 Participation of Customers in the survey

Question 2: Employment status
In Birmingham 82% of customers was full time employed and 18% respondents were parttime employed. The Dubai customers include 81% of full time employees and 19% of part
time employees.
Employment Status- UK Customers
Student
Unemployed
Retired
Part-Time Employed
Full-Time Employed
0
10
Figure 4.3 Response to question 2.
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15
20
25
30
Employment Status- Dubai Customers

Student
Unemployed
Retired
Part-Time Employed
Full-Time Employed
0
10
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15
20
25
Question 3: Which country, do you live in?
Participation in the Survey
Dubai; 44%
Birmingham; 56%

Question 4: How many banks, do you currently use?
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Customer's Loyalty towards Banks(UK)

4 or more years
1-3 years
7-12 months
Less than 6 months
Total
0
10
12
14
16

As we can see from the charts, there are customers who show multi-brand loyalty towards
banks. In Birmingham, 55% of customers maintain relationship with more than one bank and
in Dubai it is 51% of customers. Very interestingly 45% of customers in Birmingham continue
to do business with a single bank for more than one year and in Dubai, the customers
proportion of this category is 49%.
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Customer's Loyalty towards Banks(Dubai)

4 or more years
1-3 years
7-12 months
Less than 6 months
Total
0
10
12
14

Question 5: Which of the following products do you have from your main bank? Please
rank these in which you received first.
Bank account is the first product offered by all banks, so that every customer in Birmingham
and Dubai received a bank account. Banks tried to offer most of their profitable products to
customers from Birmingham and Dubai.
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Product selling by banks in Birmingham
Insurance
Mortgages & Loans
Credit cards
Bank account
0
10
15
20
25
30
35

Product selling by banks in Dubai
Insurance
Mortgages & Loans
Credit cards
Bank account
0
10
15
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20
25
30
Question 6: How did your bank offer these products?

It is very clear from the chart that, banks offer products to customers in Birmingham, mainly
through face to face conversations. Other methods such as post, e-mail and telephones are
using comparatively less number of times by banks to offer products.
Products offering methods for UK customers
Post
E-mail
Telephone
Face to face
0
10
15
20
25
30
35

In Dubai, banks use the personalization practices such as face to face conversation, telephone,
e-mail and postal offers almost similarly to offer their products.
Products offering methods for Dubai customers
Post
E-mail
Telephone
Face to face
0
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10
12
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14
16
18

Question 7: I am more likely to accept a new product/service sold --------. Please specify.
In Birmingham, 70% of the banking customers prefer to accept products offered face to face
and for Dubai customers, 74% of the respondents reveal their preference of face to face
conversation. Most of the customers from Malayalee community prefer face to face offering
to cross-buy products from banks.
UK Customer's Interest towards offering methods
15%
Face to face
9%
6%
By Telephone
Through E-mail
71%
By post
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Dubai Customer's Interest towards offering methods
19%
Face to face
By Telephone
7%
Through E-mail
74%
By post

Question 8: How long you have been banking with the current bank?
As shown in the graph below, 53% of the customers from Birmingham and 48 % of customers
from Dubai participated in the survey are continuing with their main bank for at least 4 years,
which increase the credibility of research.
UK customer's experience with their main Bank
Less than 6 months
15%
53%
7-12 months
1-3 years
32%
4 or more years

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Dubai customer's experience with their main Bank
7%
Less than 6 months
11%
7-12 months
48%
1-3 years
33%
4 or more years
4.1.1 CUSTOMER RETENTION

Question 9: My banks reputation and expertise create interest to continue with the bank
As the charts shown below, there were 15 (44%) customers from Birmingham agreed and 11
(32%) customers tend to agree with the positive influence of reputation and expertise of banks
on customer retention. From the customers of Dubai, 11 (40%) respondents agreed and 13
(48%) customers tend to agree the same facts.
Overall responses show the direct relation of banks reputation and expertise on customer
retention, which is similar to the research performed by Liu& Wu(2007) in Taiwan for bank
customers who had opened bank accounts. Liu& Wu(2007) interpreted the impact of firms
reputation and expertise on the interest of bank customers in Taiwan to retain their accounts.
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Influence of Bank's reputation and expertise on customers in Birmingham
Disagree
Tend to disagree
Neither agree nor disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0
10
12
14
16

Influence of Bank's reputation and expertise on customers in Dubai
Disagree
Tend to disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0
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10
12
14

Question: 10My banks convenient location enabled me to visit the bank frequently and
receive services.
In this research, the chart below shows that 53% of the respondents from UK are looking for the
location convenience in retaining their business deals with banks. The chart previously shown
(Figure 4.12 and 4.13) has explained that 70% of Birmingham customers and 74% of Dubai
customers prefer to accept offers through a face to face conversation and customers consider the
convenience to reach the bank.
However, from customers from Dubai, 9 (33%) respondents agree with the importance of location
convenience for more dealings with the bank and 13 (48%) customers tend to agree with this
concept.The study explained in literature review by Liu& Wu(2007) declared location
convenience of banks have a positive effect on customer retention, which has a close co-ordination
with findings of this research.
Locational Convenience and Customer Retention in UK

Disagree
Tend to disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0
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10
12
14
16
18
Locational Convenience and Customer Retention in Dubai

Disagree
Tend to disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0
10
12
14

Question: 11 I am more likely to accept products offered by bank employees from my
own country.
Herjanto& Gaur (2011) disclose that customers also consider the cultural similarity of the
banks and the sales person for maintaining the relationship. This same concept was tested in a
new sample of Malayalee community and found that 59% of the customers from Birmingham
and 81% of Dubai clients agree that they prefer to buy products offered by bank employees of
same ethnic group.
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Influence of bank's employees on customer retention in UK

Disagree
Tend to disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0
10
12
14

Influence of bank's employees on customer retention in Dubai
Disagree
Tend to disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0
10
12
14

Question 12: The quality of service delivered to me by my bank creates interest for
continuing with the bank.
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The chart below shows that 85% of the participants from Birmingham expect the high service
quality from banks for retaining their relationship with banks. From the participants from
Dubai, 85% supported the requirement of high quality service from banks for maintaining the
relationship. The study reveals that 53% of the participated customers fromBirmingham and
52% of customers from Dubaihold multiple banks, which shows the possibility for them to
shift their transactions according to their perceived service quality.
The findings of this study is in line with the research conducted by Ngobo(2004) in France
found that bank customers consider Service Quality as important for retaining the relationship
with banks.
Figure: 4.22 Response to question 12.
Service Quality and Customer Retention(UK)

Disagree
Tend to disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0
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15
20
25
Service Quality and Customer Retention(Dubai)
Disagree
Tend to disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0
10
12

Question:13 Overall, I am satisfied with my bank and I expect to use this bank in future
The influence of Satisfaction has been tested by asking this question to the respondents and
68% of the respondents from Birmingham shared their view that customer satisfaction has a
positive association with customer retention. From the customers from Dubai, 89% of clients
are satisfied and shows their interest of using the same bank for future businesses. Overall
result confirms a strong positive impact of customer satisfaction on the interest of customers
to retain their main bank.
The same concept, which shows the positive association of customer satisfaction on customer
retention, was discussed by Ngobo(2004) in his study conducted in France.Another study by
Liu& Wu(2007) revealed the positive relation between satisfaction and customer retention through
his researched conducted in Taiwan
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Influence of Satisfaction on Customer Retention in UK

Disagree
Tend to disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0
10
12
14
16
Influence of Satisfaction on Customer Retention in Dubai

Disagree
Tend to disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0
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10
12
4.1.2 CROSS-BUYING FROM BANKS

Question: 14 I consider the products quality and features before buying more products
from my bank
In total 96 % of Birmingham customers and 96% of Dubai customers entirely supported the
importance of product on cross-buying products from banks. This reveals that product quality
is very significant for cross-selling in banking industry.
Product quality and Cross-Buying(UK)
Disagree
Tend to disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0
10
15
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20
25
30
Product quality and Cross-Buying(Dubai)

Disagree
Tend to disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0
10
12
14
16
Question: 15Sourcingdifferent products/services from different banks gets you the best
deals.
Dependancy on multiple banks for better deals(UK)
Disagree
Tend to disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0
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10
12
14
16
Dependancy on multiple banks for better deals(Dubai)

Disagree
Tend to disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0
10
12
14

From the customers of Birmingham, 44% agree with their dependency on more than one bank
for getting better offers and 25% clients tend to agree with that. However, from the Dubai
customers, 48% of customers did not show a clear opinion about this and only 15% clients
clearly reveal the importance of sourcing more banks for better offers.
Question: 16It annoys me when my main bank keeps contacting me about extra products
and services.
It was very interesting that even the satisfied customers were annoyed by the frequent and
inappropriate product offerings by banks.
In Birmingham, almost 18% of satisfied customers agreed they were getting annoyed by banks
frequent product offerings and 26% of satisfied customers tend to agree with this view. In
Dubai, though there were 27% of satisfied customers who got annoyed by banks offerings,
41% of satisfied people neither agree nor disagree with that and rest of the customers were
happy to receive all the offers from banks.
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Response to the frequent product offerings by UK Banks

Disagree
Tend to disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0
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10
12
Response to the frequent product offerings by Banks(Dubai)

Disagree
Tend to disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0
10
12
Question: 17My banks reputation and expertise create interest in buying more products
from the bank.
As shown in the charts below, almost 52% of the participants from Birmingham, agreed that
they consider the reputation and expertise of banks before cross-buying products and nearly
41% of people tend to agree with that opinion.
Reputation and Expertize of banks and Cross-Buying(UK)
Disagree
Tend to disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0

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10
12
14
Liu& Wu (2007) confirmed the direct relation between banks reputation and expertise with the
cross-buying behavior of customers in Taiwan. From the Dubai customers, 70% of the respondents
agreed or tend to agree with this importance of banks reputation and expertise in cross-buying.
Reputation and Expertize of banks and Cross-Buying(Dubai)

Disagree
Tend to disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0
10
12
14

Question: 18 My main bank offers me a good deal to take other products and services
from it.
Banks' good deals and cross-buying(UK)

Disagree
Tend to disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0

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10
12
Bank's good deals and cross-buying(Dubai)

Disagree
Tend to disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0
10
12
14

Question:19I find it more convenient to buy multiple products from the same bank.
The given charts clearly indicate that 59% of customers from Birmingham and 74% of
customers from Dubai almost agree that they are attracted with the convenience created by
banks for cross-buying. Ngobo(2004) state that cross-buying is positively influenced by
perceived convenience.
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Convenience created for cross-buying(UK)

Disagree
Tend to disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0
10
12

Convenience created for cross-buying(Dubai)
Disagree
Tend to disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0
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10
12
14
Question 20: I consider bank as the best place to buy insurance

Image conflicts - Birmingham customers
Disagree
Tend to disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0
10 12 14 16 18 20

Image conflicts - Customers in Dubai
Disagree
Tend to disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0
10
12
14

Question 21: I consider, it is better to buy products from the present bank because of
problems in changing banks
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Ngobo(2004) declared that the perceived switching cost have a positive association and image
conflicts have a negative association on the cross-buying intentions of customers. Given charts
specify that 53% of respondents from Birmingham and 85% of Dubai customers support the
same concept of Ngobo(2004)that switching problems and switching cost are strong reasons
for buying additional products from the same bank.
Impact of Switching cost- Birmingham Customers
Disagree
Tend to disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0
10
12

Impact of Switching cost - Dubai customers
Disagree
Tend to disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0
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12
14
16
18
Question 22: I fear my main bank will charge me higher prices if I get all my products
and services from it.
Confidence in Banks - Birmingham Customers
Disagree
Tend to disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0

Confidence in banks - Dubai Customers
Disagree
Tend to disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0

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Question 23: I dont trust my main bank enough to buy all products and services from it
Trust on banks - Birmingham customers
Disagree
Tend to disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0
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10
12
14
Trust on banks - Dubai customers

Disagree
Tend to disagree
Tend to agree
Agree
0

The impact of trust on cross-buying is analysed by examining the questions 22 and 23 from
the questionnaire. Majority of the customers from Birmingham and Dubai have confidence in
banks and they trust bank their main bank to receive more products. The research also
analysed the percentage of satisfied people who trust their main bank. It is found that, from the
satisfied customers, 39% of clients from Birmingham and 54% from Dubai trust their main
bank.
SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES IN THE VIEWS
The customers from Birmingham and Dubai have similar views towards the factors that have
impact on customer retention and cross-buying. Customers from both province agreed that the
factors discussed through the conceptual model have positive association with customer
retention and cross-buying. The main difference in opinion happened is that, majority of Dubai
customers did not show a clear judgment towards approaching more banks for right products.
Another variation was that compared to the 59% of the customers from Birmingham and 81%
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of Dubai clients agree that they prefer to buy products offered by bank employees of same
ethnic group.
4.2ANALYSIS OF HSBC BANKS CROSS SELLING ACTIVITIES

HSBC bank responded for SIX questions from the questionnaire, but the answers were a
combination of contents for all the 10 questions to achieve the objectives. HSBC bank
operates internationally and researcher had to presume that bank craft strategies in the
corporate level and holds national level strategies based on the banks customer segments.
Question 1: How does the bank decide what extra product or services to offer to the
customers?
Question 6: How does the bank segment the customer group?
As an International bank, HSBC compete with other banks locally and internationally. Staff in
HSBC identifies the needs of customers by creating a profile called Individual Needs Review
(INR). INR tells all the needs of customers from bank in long term. The segmentation of
customers is performed based on INR and customers behaviour is regularly monitored to
analyse the benefits and risks involved and offered products.
HSBC banks product offering decision making enhances the chances of retaining the
customers and improved the cross-selling opportunities. HSBC bank offers convertible
products that are flexible enough to meet the requirements of customers at the different stages
of their life. A classic example is the Head Start Account offered to kids converting to current
account in the future and bank sell personal loan, credit cards and mortgage, vehicle loan and
other wealth products to that employee.
Question 2: How frequently does bank offer extra products or services?
Question 7: How does the bank use segmentation information for offering products?
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HSBC bank is working on a system called Customer Relationship Management System and
bank always tries to keep a good relationship with its customers. This CRM System reveals
the requirement of customer segmentation based on aspects such as customers nationality,
age, profession, remuneration and the nature of spending money.
This research found that HSBC bank already applied a sales strategy, which does not fix an
interval for offering products to its customers, instead utilize all the opportunities to sell any of
the appropriate products to a customer. Bank always attempts to sell, high income generating
products such as insurance, loans and wealth products according to the potential of different
customer segments.HSBC bank creates a strong relationship with its customers, to ensure that
the right products are discussed at right time based on customers behaviour and demographic
features.
Question 3: How does the bank contact customers for offering these services?
The segmentation of customers based on the instruction of CRMS, facilitate bank to identify
the potential of each customer. Bank realized the significance of existing customers for
increasing their product sales, so that a list of customers is created from these particular predecided segments to offer them more products.
Bank targets the customers with reasonable income and have a high spending. Banks contacts
the customers according to their needs, at the right time through telephones and e-mails to
offers them the right product. HSBC bank also employs public advertising through audio and
video medium and print Medias to attract the customers towards banks promotions.The tool
of seasonal marketing is applied by HSBC bank for customers who travel for holidays.
Question 4: How does the bank consider the perception of customers for crafting crossselling strategies?
The application of the profile Individual Needs Review supports HSBC bank to understand
the perception and expectations of customers towards the services of the bank. Even though
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the perception of customers has influence on banks decisions, banks try to suppress this by
impressing customers at the first time with banks outstanding service.
HSBC always try to provide outstanding service that helps them to cross-sell products, even
with high benefits for bank. For instance, HSBC bank is successful in cross-selling loans and
credit cards for its customers at a high rate of interest.
Question 5: What are the other factors that bank judges as important for developing
cross-selling strategies?
Question 8: How does the bank build relationship with customers?
HSBC bank realises the importance of relationship marketing and offers products based on
that relationship. One of the important methods applied by HSBC bank to offer products is to
invite customers to the bank for a coffee and solve their concerns. Bank finds this as the best
time to investigate the need of additional products, hence for cross selling.
This research found that, HSBC utilizes seasonal marketing strategy for capitalizing the
market share. The other approaches such as offering credit cards and loans to the customers at
the time of opening a bank account are successfully worked out by HSBC bank. The bank
agents try to sell some products that customers does not have, for the calls from customers to
the bank.
Question 10: How does the bank provide products and services to the Indian
Expatriates?
Question 6:What is the role of products and services in building relationship with
customers?
HSBC bank considers the culture of Indian expatriates for crafting the strategies for crossselling. HSBC bank found that Indian customers look for discounts, offers and attracted for
lending facilities based on the market economic factors. HSBC bank mainly offers convenient
and secure, savings and current accounts, investment, expat bank cards, foreign exchange and
gives option to take mortgages for the Indian Expatriates (HSBC 2012). Bank offers loans for
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Indian customers, when Indian rupee depreciates against other major domestic currencies to
boost the amount of loans. The approaches such as raffle draws, gift vouchers and instalment
plans for loans and credit cards attract Indian customers towards banks at the time of festivals
in India.
However, HSBC bank mainly applies these strategies for the benefits for the bank and pushes
the Indian customers to use credit cards to spend, in order to gain more economic benefits
through high interest rates on credit card purchases. For all the offers to Indian customers,
HSBC bank imposes hidden charges. Indian customers are very keen to ensure the liabilities
are cleared and this increased the HSBC banks trust on Indian customers to lend more.
5 CHAPTER FIVE CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

5.1CONCLUSION
The research critically analysed several aspects of customers perception towards banking
activities and banks marketing activities to successfully achieve the research objectives. The
existed research gap is filled by the powerful examination of the key aspects influencing crossbuying.
Objective 1: To investigate the factors that customers consider as important for retaining
banking with the current bank.
The impact of the significant factors such as firms reputation and expertise, location
convenience, service quality, customer satisfaction and employees cultural similarity on
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customer retention was tested. The research found that all these factors have positive
association with customer retention. A major group of customers from Birmingham and Dubai
prefer face to face conversation for accepting products and consider the importance of location
convenience in maintaining relationship with banks. Both the customers of Birmingham and
Dubai expressed banks reputation and expertise, service quality and customer satisfaction are
the most important determinants for retaining business with banks. Customers from this ethnic
group are influenced by the bank employees of the same culture.
Objective 2:To understand the perception of customers towards Cross-Buying banks
products.
In order to understand the perception of Malayalee customers towards cross-buying banks
products, the influence of factors such as banks reputation and expertise, product attributes,
perceived convenience, trust and switching cost were assessed. Banks reputation and
expertise are positively related to cross-buying.Product quality seems to be highly important
for cross-buying. Perceived convenience, switching cost and trust has shown positive impacts
on the cross-buying intentions of customers. The research revealed that most of the satisfied
customers trust their main bank, thus proved the mediating effect of satisfaction on trust and
cross-buying.
The difficulties and the expenses for shifting banks lead to the intention of buying more
products from the same bank. Research findings highlighted that almost half of the
participants from Dubai and Birmingham continue with their main bank for 4 or more years.
All the research findings related to customer retention and cross-buying intentions of
customers are in line with the results of previous studies that examined the factors influencing
customer retention and cross-selling in banking industry (Ngobo, 2004; Liang & Wang, 2004;
Liu & Wu, 2007; Herjanto& Gaur, 2011). Financial service industry is highly sophisticated and
customers anticipate comfort, confidence and trust from banks for doing business with them
and it seems to be same for the customers from different cultures.
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Objective 3:Recognize the strategies that has been implemented by HSBC bank, for retaining
It was necessary to examine all the important factors such as the kind of product offering and
the main methods, its frequency, customer segmentation process, relationship marketing and
influence of products on cross-selling, for achieving this objective. The primary action for
segmentation and other product offering decision is the creation of the profile called
Individual Needs Review. HSBC always tries to offer highly innovative and flexible
products that create interest in customers to retain the products for long time. The Customer
Relationship Management System of HSBC bank helps to keep a good relationship with
customers. The applied sales strategy for the bank is to utilise all the opportunities for crossselling, especially the high income generating products such as insurance, loans and wealth
products.
Bank is successful in offering and cross-selling products to existing customers through
seasonal marketing. Customers will be contacted through telephone or e-mail, also advertise
through audio, video and printed medium. Bank believes in Relationship Marketing and
invite customers for face to face conversation to resolve customers concerns and these
conversations would be the opportunities for bank to realise customer needs and cross-sell the
right products.
Objective 4:To analyse whether HSBC bank makes use of the perception of Indian
Expatriates towards banks activities, for retaining them and for cross-selling banks products.
The task was to interpret the extent to which HSBC bank considers the customer expectations,
needs and wants, for offering more products to existing Indian customers.
HSBC bank clearly considers the culture of Indian Expatriates and their expectations from
bank to craft cross-selling strategies. Bank makes use of Individual Needs Review to
recognize the perception and expectations of customers. High quality service has been
delivered by HSBC bank to attract the customers to the bank and retain them for long term.
The successful branding and well positioning of HSBC bank helped it to be successful in
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serving more people. Indian customers always seek maximum benefits from the bank, like
discounts, offers and other lending facilities. So the products are delivered in a way that Indian
customers feel high quality and comfort.
However, HSBC bank tries to suppress the influence of customers by perceived service
quality. Bank always tries to leverage operations for maximizing economic benefits from
Indian customers. Hidden charges are applied for all these promotions and discounts offered to
Indian expatriates by the bank. The feature of Indian Expatriates, that is to clear the liabilities
on time, increased the HSBC banks trust on Indian customers.
The research found that HSBC follows the same concept of Liang(2008) that the perception of
customers influences the financial performance of the banks. HSBC holds a clear view that the
aspects such as customers income, education, life cycle, age and gender have impact of
customers desire of buying multiple products from financial firms, same as the result
explained by Konstantinoset al., (2004) and HSBC apply INR for segmentation. Chaudhry&
Crick(2004) disclosed HSBC banks keep separate marketing strategies for ethnic Asian groups
and are similar from the responses from HSBC bank.
5.2 RECOMMENDATIONS
It is worth to present recommendations based the findings of the research, which are listed
below.
Recommendations based on customers perception
1) The participation of customers in the research facilitates them to express their views
and opinions about the banking services that can influence the banks decision making
related to customer services.
2) Bank marketers should always focus to create brand awareness and thus build
reputation, which have impact on both customer retention and cross-buying.
3) It will be a wise idea for the banks to offer products to customer through a sales expert,
who resembles cultural similarity with the customer.
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4) Since the product quality has a great impact on the cross-buying intentions of
customers, researcher suggests the banks to interpret the needs and wants of customers
and deliver the appropriate products.
Recommendations to HSBC bank based on their responses
5) HSBC bank must follow a system to continuously monitor the customer satisfaction,
since the customer satisfaction have a mediating effect on the customers trust on
banks. Trust is one of the most important factors that increase cross-selling in banks
and HSBC agrees with the high competition in the banking industry, managers must
deliver high quality services and must show trust towards their promises to achieve
customers trust to avoid multi-brand loyalty.
6) Research found that even the satisfied customers get annoyed by the frequent product
offerings by banks. Customers are always cautious about the cold telesales and HSBC
bank should either stop or reduce telesales and focus on face to face offers by building
relationship. Bank can make use of these face to face conversations to understand the
best offering methods.
In short, all the factors that were examined to find the association with customer retention
and cross-buying are significant and banks must facilitate the important factors such as
face to face conversations, high quality services and appropriate product offers to achieve
satisfaction and trust, which will reduce customers multi-brand loyalty.
5.3 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

1) The number of participants in this study is inadequate and their views and opinions are
not ample to consider as the view of a community.
2) The researcher could not include the sections for finding out the significance of image
conflicts and direct mailings in creating cross-buying intentions on customers, in order
to limit the research to the allowed word count. There should be some more questions
to be added in the questionnaire to identify the relationship between the different
factors that influence customer retention and cross-buying.
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3) The methods used to gather data from the bank affected the quality of the information.
Research did not gather any of the information from the HSBC bank in UK. The
responses from the bank in UAE did not reveal whether their strategies are crafted in
the corporate level or national level. Research considered HSBC bank as an
international bank and generalised the information received from the HSBC bank in
Dubai.
4) There was no preliminary test for the questionnaires to check the consistency of
questions.
5) The usage of self-selection sample would have generated biased responses for the
research.
6) Researcher did not properly utilize the opportunity to check whether HSBC bank
considered the perception of malayalee community for crafting cross-selling
strategies, instead researcher considered malayalee community as a part of Indian
expatriates.
7) The word limit of the research restricted the author to include some of the important
portions into the appendix, which affected the qualityof the research.
5.4 FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTION

This research clarifies the aspects related to customer retention and cross buying. Further
research can be done in other industries to investigate on customer retention and cross buying.
The same approaches can be tested on other ethnic community expatriates and can perform
comparison with this study.
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APPENDICES
APPENDIX ONE
Questionnaire 1, forwarded to banking customers in Birmingham and Dubai
Covering Letter
Dear Participant,
My name is Lijo Varghese Chirackal Manavalan. I am a student at Birmingham City
University doing MBA-International Business (Master of Business Administration).
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I am conducting a research for my dissertation entitled Customer perception towards crossbuying banks products. I would like to present this questionnaire to gather data for
understanding the view of customers and is purely for academic purpose. Your point of view
will remain confidential and you have the right to withdraw this information at any time.
I would appreciate your participation in this study; it will take approximately 5-7 minutes to
complete the questionnaire.
Section A: Background Information (Demographics)

1) Please specify your Gender:
Male
Female
2) Employment status :
Full-Time Employed
Part-Time Employed
Retired
Unemployed
Student
3) Which country, do you live in?
UK(Birmingham)
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UAE(Dubai)
Section B: Experience with Banks
4) How many banks, do you currently use?
One
Two
Three
Four or more
5) Which of the following products do you have from your main bank? Please rank these
in which you received first.
Bank account
Credit cards
Mortgages
Loans
Insurance
6) How did your bank offer these products?
Face to face
Telephone
E-mail
Post
7) I am more likely to accept a new product/service sold --------. Please specify.
Face to face
By telephone
Through E-mail
By Post
8) How long you have been banking with the current bank?
Less than 6 months
7-12 months
1-3 years
4 or more years
Section C: Customers Perception
9) My banks reputation and expertise create interest to continue with the bank.
Agree
Tend to agree
Tend to disagree
Disagree
10) My banks convenient location enabled me to visit the bank frequently and receive
services.
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Agree
Tend to agree
Tend to disagree
Disagree
11) I am more likely to accept products offered by bank employees from my own country.
Agree
Tend to agree
Tend to disagree
Disagree
12) The quality of service delivered to me by my bank creates interest for continuing with
the bank.
Agree
Tend to agree
Tend to disagree
Disagree
13) Overall, I am satisfied with my bank and I expect to use this bank in future.
Agree
Tend to agree
Tend to disagree
Disagree
14) I consider the products quality and features before buying more products from my
bank.
Agree
Tend to agree
Tend to disagree
Disagree
15) Sourcing different products/services from different banks gets you the best deals.
Agree
Tend to agree
Tend to disagree
Disagree
16) It annoys me when my main bank keeps contacting me about extra products and
services.
Agree
Tend to agree
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Tend to disagree
Disagree
17) My banks reputation and expertise create interest in buying more products from the
bank.
Agree
Tend to agree
Tend to disagree
Disagree
18) My main bank offers me a good deal to take other products and services from it.
Agree
Tend to agree
Tend to disagree
Disagree
19) I find it more convenient to buy multiple products from the same bank.
Agree
Tend to agree
Tend to disagree
Disagree
20) I consider bank as the best place to buy insurance.
Agree
Tend to agree
Tend to disagree
Disagree
21) I consider, it is better to buy products from the present bank because of problems in
changing banks.
Agree
Tend to agree
Tend to disagree
Disagree
22) I fear my main bank will charge me higher prices if I get all my products and services
from it.
Agree
Tend to agree
Tend to disagree
Disagree
23) I dont trust my main bank enough to buy all products and services from it.
Agree
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Tend to agree
Tend to disagree
Disagree
Note: If you would like to receive the results of this survey, please fill in the following details.
Name:
E-mail:
Address:
Commentary about the relation of Questions with the Objectives and Previous
studies
Research Objectives
4) To analyse whether HSBC bank make use of the perception of Indian Expatriates on
banks activities, for retaining them and for cross-selling their products.
This questionnaire is developed to achieve the objectives ONE and TWO of this research. The
questions 5 to 13 facilitate to successfully accomplish objective ONE. In order to realize the
objective TWO, questionnaire included questions 5 to 8 and 14 to 23.
Question 4:How many banks, do you currently use?
One
Two
Three
Four or more
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Question 5:Which of the following products do you have from your main bank? Please rank
these in which you received first.
Bank account
Credit cards
Mortgages
Loans
Insurance
Question 6:How did your bank offer these products?
Face to face
Telephone
E-mail
Post
Question 8:How long you have been banking with the current bank?
Less than 6 months
7-12 months
1-3 years
4 or more years
A significant research was done in New Zealand and the same questions were used by
Sajtos&Kreis(2010) to understand, how many banks the customers were doing business with
(Question 4), what kind of methods banks mainly using for offering products (Question 5) and the
degree of customer loyalty (Question 8).The details for the creation of Question 6 is collected
from the websites of NatWest and HSBC banks (NatWest Personal Banking, HSBC Personal).
Question 7:I am more likely to accept a new product/service sold --------. Please specify.
Face to face
By telephone
Through E-mail
By Post
Liu& Wu(2007) investigate that effect of direct mailings on cross-buying intentions and states that
the communication between bank and customer increases with direct mailings. Eugenia& Lin
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(2005) tried to understand the best personalization practices to facilitate banking services to
customers.
Question 9:My banks reputation and expertise create interest to continue with the bank.
Agree
Tend to agree
Tend to disagree
Disagree
Question 10:My banks convenient location enabled me to visit the bank frequently and
receive services.
Agree
Tend to agree
Tend to disagree
Disagree
Liu& Wu(2007) researched the relationship of location convenience, firm reputation and firm
expertise with customer retention and confirmed that there is a direct relationship between them.
Question 11:I am more likely to accept products offered by bank employees from my own
country.
Agree
Tend to agree
Tend to disagree
Disagree
Herjanto&Gaur( 2011) disclose that customers also consider the cultural similarity of the banks
and the sales person for maintaining the relationship. The similarity of the bank personal in
appearance, language, religion and the social and economic class with the customers make them
more relaxed to amplify the level and number of interaction, which ultimately direct to customer
satisfaction.
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Question 12:The quality of service delivered to me by my bank creates interest for continuing
with the bank.
Agree
Tend to agree
Tend to disagree
Disagree
Question 13:Overall, I am satisfied with my bank and I expect to use this bank in future.
Agree
Tend to agree
Tend to disagree
Disagree
Ngobo(2004) studied the relationship of service quality and satisfaction with the repurchase
intentions.Liu& Wu (2007) also states that there is a positive relation between satisfaction and
customer retention.
Question 14:I consider the products quality and features before buying more products from
my bank.
Agree
Tend to agree
Tend to disagree
Disagree
Customers will purchase new innovative as well as existing products according to the convenience
in purchase, reliability of the product, flexibility, security and easiness of usage (Marfo-Yiadom,
2012).
Customers are expected to know about the product quality, features and availability (Petruzzellis,
2011).Petruzzellis (2011) examined that Physical / Technical (product and bank) attributes
directly affect customer choice, and consequently the relationship.
Question 17:My banks reputation and expertise create interest in buying more products from
the bank.
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Agree
Tend to agree
Tend to disagree
Disagree
Question 19:I find it more convenient to buy multiple products from the same bank.
Agree
Tend to agree
Tend to disagree
Disagree
Question 23: I dont trust my main bank enough to buy all products and services from it.
Agree
Tend to agree
Tend to disagree
Disagree
Ngobo(2004) revealed the positive relationship of perceived convenience on cross-buying
intentions.
Liu& Wu(2007) also states that there is a positive relation between firms reputation, firms
expertise and one-stop shopping convenience with the cross-buying intentions.Liu& Wu(2007)
also reveal that the trust has direct effect on cross-buying intentions.Soureli& Lewis(2008) tested
the positive effect of Trust on the cross-buying intentions of banking customers.
Question 20:I consider bank as the best place to buy insurance.

Agree
Tend to agree
Tend to disagree
Disagree
Question 21:I consider, it is better to buy products from the present bank because of problems
in changing banks.
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Agree
Tend to agree
Tend to disagree
Disagree
Ngobo(2004) says about the impact of perceived switching cost and Image conflicts on the crossbuying intentions. Author found that cross-buying is positively influenced by switching costs and
the image conflicts have a negative association with cross-buying intentions.
APPENDIX TWO
Questionnaire 2, forwarded to HSBC bank in Dubai
1)
2)
3)
4)
How does the bank decide what extra product or services to offer to the customers?
How frequently does bank offer extra products or services?
How does the bank contact customers for offering these services?
How does the bank consider the perception of customers for crafting cross-selling
strategies?
5) What are the other factors that bank judges as important for developing cross-selling
strategies?
6) How does the bank segment the customer group?
7) How does the bank use segmentation information for offering products?
8) How does the bank build relationship with customers?
9) What is the role of products and services in building relationship with customers?
10) How does the bank provide products and services to the Indian Expatriates?
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Commentary about the relation of Questions with the Objectives and Previous
studies
Research Objectives
4) To analyse whether HSBC bank make use of the perception of Indian Expatriates on
banks activities, for retaining them and for cross-selling their products.
Questions 1 to 3 and 5 to 9 were developed to analyse the factors to achieve the objective three
and Questions 4 and 10 were developed to
Question 1:How does the bank decide what extra product or services to offer to the
customers?
Question 2:How frequently does bank offer extra products or services?
Banks have to consider the customers awareness and interests on the products, at the same
time offer the profitable products. Marfo-Yiadom(2012) studied the perception of users on the
innovative financial products. Banks can make use of this type of studies. Liang(2008) says
the perception of customers influence the financial performance of the banks. So it can be an
option for them to craft banks strategies.
Question3: How does the bank contact customers for offering these services?
Eugenia & Lin(2005) tried to understand the good personalization practices for banks with
their customers
Question 4:How does the bank consider the perception of customers for crafting crossselling strategies?
Ngobo(2004) says banks should consider the perceptions of customers towards their products,
while offering multiple products. Kumar et al(2008) found the perception of customers
towards bank and its products have a positive association with cross-selling. Liang (2008)
reveals that the perception of customers influences the financial performance of the banks.
Question 6:How does the bank segment the customer group?
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Based on other studies Konstantinoset al., (2004), it is very clear that the aspects such as
customers income, education, life cycle; age and gender have impact of customers desire of
buying multiple products from financial firms. The segmentation can be done by banks
according to these demographic features.
Question 7:How does the bank use segmentation information for offering products?
Cameron, Cornish& Nelson(2006) suggest that segmentation has to be done individually and
in the house hold level but the performance of the segmentation will be reduced without key
data of the customers. Meadows&Dibb(1998) disclose the claim of many banks that they used
segmentation as a means for discriminating profitable and non-profitable customers
Question 10:How does the bank provide products and services to the Indian Expatriates?
Chaudhry& Crick(2004) disclose HSBC banks marketing strategy towards the ethnic Asian
groups. HSBC bank had given the priority to fulfill the needs of Indian and Chinese
communities and the strategy was to target on sub-cultures in those countries. HSBC bank
tried to keep personalized relationship with the customers.
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Perception of Malayalee customers in Birmingham and Dubai towards cross-buying banks products:

Analysis of cross-selling activities in HSBC

Perception of Malayalee customers in

Dissertation submitted to Birmingham City University in

Master of Business Administration

Submission Date: 31st August 2012

2.1.4.4Employees cultural similarity and Customer retention.............................................10

Factors influencing cross-buying...............................................................11

2.1.5.1 Product quality and cross-buying...........................................................11

3.7 Ethics in research....................................................................................................23

- Individual Needs Review

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

1.3RATIONALE FOR THE RESEARCH

2. CHAPTER TWO - LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 CUSTOMER RETENTION AND CROSS-BUYING

2.1.2 Customers perception towards Cross-Buying

2.1.3 Conceptual Model

Figure: 2.1Factors influencing customer retention and cross-buying in banking industry.

2.1.3.1Base models for the research

2.1.4Factors influencing customer retention

2.1.4.2 Service Quality, Satisfaction and Customer Retention

2.1.4.3 Location convenience

2.1.4.4 Employees cultural similarity and customer retention

2.1.5Factors influencing cross-buying

2.1.5.2 Perceived Convenience

2.1.5.3Trust and Confidence

2.1.5.4Customers loyalty towards Bank

2.1.5.5 Switching Banks and Multi-Brand Loyalty

2.1.5.6 Customer Relationship by Banks

2.2MARKETING ACTIVITIES OF BANKS

2.2.2 Market Segmentation

2.2.3 Focus on Ethnic Groups and Cultures

2.2.4 Branding and Relationship

2.2.5 Demographic Features

2.2.6Cross-selling Activities of Banks

The study conducted in UAE by Kassim&Souiden (2007), selected a convenient sample of

3. CHAPTER THREE RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 QUANTITATIVE AND QULAITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS

3.2 DATA COLLECTION

3.2.1 Primary Data

3.2.2 Secondary Data

3.3 QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN

3.4 SAMPLE METHOD

3.5 DATA VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY

3.7 ETHICS IN RESEARCH

4 CHAPTER FOURRESEARCH FINDINGS AND DATA ANALYSIS

4.1 FACTORS INFLUENCING CUSTOMER RETENTION AND CROSS-BUYING

Customers from Dubai

Figure 4.1 and 4.2 Participation of Customers in the survey

Figure 4.3 Response to question 2.

Employment Status- Dubai Customers

Figure 4.4 Response to question 2.

Question 3: Which country, do you live in?

Participation in the Survey

Figure 4.5 Response to question 3.

Customer's Loyalty towards Banks(UK)

Less than 6 months

Figure 4.6 Response to question 4.

Customer's Loyalty towards Banks(Dubai)

Less than 6 months

Figure 4.7 Response to question 4.

Product selling by banks in Birmingham