Correspondence: Stephen R. Onufrey, Onufrey Group LLC 534 Spencer Lane Warminster, PA 18974, USA. Tel: +1 215 460 8888; E-mail: steve.onufrey@onufreygroup.com

¹is Professor of Marketing and Faculty Coordinator of the High Technology MBA programme at Northeastern University and Lecturer and Researcher in the Masters Programme in Industrial Management at Universita Degli Studi Di Siena, Italy, as well as at Harvard University and for executive MBA programmes. He has been a consultant to the US Department of Commerce and numerous blue-chip companies.

²has 40 years of practical experience in planning, cost-justification, marketing and implementing all facets of Customer Experience-focused retail banking delivery solutions. This includes 38 years at IBM and 2 years at Unisys. He founded Onufrey Group in November of 2008. Since then he has led specific projects in banking, charitable giving, veterinary customer experience and marketing.

³is President of Moskowitz Jacobs, Inc., a strategic marketing research company headquartered in White Plains, New York, USA. He is the co-author of Selling Blue Elephants: How to Make Great Products That People Want Even Before They Know They Want Them.

Received 23 February 2009.

Abstract

Service marketing, customer service satisfaction and the transition of the economy from product manufacturing to a service-oriented economy have received extensive attention in the business world. In this kind of an economy, customers who experience a high level of satisfaction become repeat, loyal customers. The result of loyalty in banking is that customers remain customers, even when they have a negative experience. In addition to loyalty, an emerging area of interest is customer advocacy, which is built on the basics of customer satisfaction and loyalty. The 'advocate' customer in turn communicateswith other individuals who might become new customers.