How a Major U.S. Bank Quickly Assessed New Competitors and Improved Service in Newly Acquired Markets
The Challenge
When a major U.S. bank expanded into new regions following an acquisition, it suddenly faced competitors it had never encountered before. Leadership needed clarity—fast. They chose Confero to provide competitive bank mystery shopping following their acquisition.
They wanted answers to key questions:
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How did their newly acquired branches compare to long-established regional competitors?
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Were frontline teams demonstrating service behaviors that matched the bank’s brand promise?
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What strengths could they leverage—and what gaps required immediate attention?
Because managers already had full workloads and couldn’t reliably collect unbiased insights, the bank needed an objective, scalable method to understand its new competitive landscape.
The Objective
The bank asked Confero to:
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Conduct head-to-head competitive mystery shops in both its own branches and nearby competitor branches.
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Evaluate customer touchpoints including teller interactions, account inquiries, issue resolution, and referral behaviors.
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Deliver actionable, location-level insights that would guide training, coaching, and market-entry strategy.
Confero’s Approach
Confero designed a combined mystery shopping + mystery calling program tailored for retail banking environments across multiple states.
Program Design Included:
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Shopper visits to both the client bank and competitor branches in the same trade area.
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Scenario-driven inquiries such as account openings, service issues, and product-fit questions.
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Voice-of-customer style calls to evaluate phone etiquette, helpfulness, and service consistency.
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Customers from each bank were sent to their respective branches to test issue-resolution behaviors—mirroring real-world interactions.
This method ensured apples-to-apples comparisons between the client’s branches and their new competitors.
The Results
Confero’s competitive bank branch analysis after acquisition revealed:
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Clear service strengths the bank could promote in local marketing.
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Behavioral gaps where competitors outperformed them, particularly in new-to-market regions.
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Specific employee actions that drove customer trust—and where improvement would drive higher conversion rates and loyalty.
Armed with this intelligence, regional managers refined training, aligned expectations, and rapidly elevated branch service standards.
The bank gained an accurate, unbiased understanding of how it stood against new competitors—essential insights during post-acquisition integration.
Why This Matters for Financial Institutions
Competitive mystery shops help banking leaders:
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Strengthen brand reputation in markets where trust is everything.
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Ensure compliance with customer-facing standards and scripts.
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Grow revenue by identifying where service behaviors directly influence account openings, referrals, and retention.
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Prioritize training with evidence-based coaching points rather than assumptions.
In a crowded banking landscape, knowing exactly how your branch teams compare gives you the advantage.
Explore More
Curious about using competitive evaluations in your own market?
Visit our blog post: Why Mystery Shopping Your Competition Matters More Than Ever.
