Client segmentation in a South African financial services company

[摘要] Purpose: The business landscape for financial services providers around the world and in South Africa has seen many changes in terms of the economic environment, regulation and consumer needs. Amidst these changes, financial services providers seek to ensure efficient and sustainable business practices through strategies such as client segmentation. The purpose of this research is to analyse the client segmentation practices of financial advisors working under the licence of a financial service provider (FSP) in South Africa.Methodology: A qualitative approach was adopted to analyse segmentation practices of the financial advisors working under the FSP licence. Eight financial advisors were interviewed in order to gain insight to the research questions. The participants' identities were kept anonymous to protect the identity of the financial service provider and to ensure that the participants' responses were not restricted.Findings: The following themes were noted; participants' experience and perception of client segmentation, the approach by most advisors lacked alignment to the value proposition.Conclusion: Effective implementation of client segmentation and a defined service standard depends on the alignment of the segmentation to the value proposition and resource capability of the advisor. Based on this, recommendations were made with respect to a change management programme to address these issues and a best practice guide was included in the appendix.

[发布机构] University of the Free State