10% of retirees would switch financial firms for service tailored to needs. A solid grasp of the differences and similarities between people who are already retired and those on the verge of retirement is crucial for financial firms that hope to tailor their services to these demographic segments.

More specifically, the 43-page report compares multi-channel activities between pre-retirees and retirees in six channels: branch personnel, call centers, financial advisors, e-mail, interactive voice response and websites.

Refinement

"There are many similarities between people who are nearing retirement and those who are on the other side of it, [but] there are also some subtle differences between each group," says Adam Honoré, senior analyst with Aite Group and author of the report Multi-channel Usage in a Demographic Sweet Spot: Looking at Investor Behavior Before and After Retirement. "As firms refine their service models to capture and retain this demographic sweet spot, they will do well to recognize [this]."

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Aite, a Boston-based market-research and consulting firm, polled 505 people who had either retired within the past five years or planned to do so with the same time frame. were within five years of retiring or within five years of already having retired, asking The survey found that 10% of customers were looking to switch financial institutions, pointing to significant risks and challenges for financial-service providers -- especially in view of the fact that nearly two-thirds of the near-retirees and around half of the post-retirees surveyed had net assets under management of more than $100,000.

To remain competitive, banks and brokerage firms would do well to continue investing in relationship-building activities, the Aite report concludes. -FWR

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