Commerce Bank Case Study

According to Frei (2008), there are four service elements that can be the downfall of a service business - the offering or its funding mechanism and the employee management or the customer management system. The concept of retailtainment set forth by Commerce is one that provokes the innovation from branch managers in order to drive up customer satisfaction. Although Commerce’s products are not as attractive as those of its competitors, the offering of complimentary newspaper and coffee with the convenient bank hours and friendly employee interactions are attributes that add value to the overall service. Commerce Bank has done a remarkable task at acquiring their customer base, as a tool of persuasion the organization reciprocates the goal

Commerce established an awards ceremony each year, where employees were honored for being outstanding service performers in various categories (refer to Appendix A for the various awards categories and respective criterions). Recognitions entice the employee base to continue to strive to perform well, thus, attributing to the overall success of Commerce Bank.
On the contrary, Commerce lacked other dimensions with the use of the retailtainment. Since the inception of retailtainment, Commerce began to focus on self-service, or lack thereof. Commerce is engrossed with the ideaology that the extraordinary environment are what will attract customers. In actuality, this notion lacks the proper mediums in order to effectively communicate to the customers. For instance, Jacovelli recollected a phone conversation she had with a

Among the many contributing factors as to why the bank has a limited capability in executing the objective of retailtainment, lies within the fact that there were no real competitive advantage at Commerce Bank. When Carole Robbins recently changed to Commerce from her previous bank that was recently acquired by Citibank, she could not conjure the reason for switching banks, even after experiencing the retailtainment at Commerce. “[Commerce] is a blast from the past: a bank with an old-fashioned approach to service…there’s a different attitude here, like we’re all in this together. But time will tell. All restaurants are good in the beginning too” (Frei,