When BankNewport decided to build a branch office in the South County area, the people in charge had a marketing survey done and chose for the site the busy Stop & Shop plaza at the junction of Routes 4 and 102 in North Kingstown.
They did so, even though Citizens Bank operates inside the North Kingstown supermarket, just a few hundred feet away.
Now, about five months after the BankNewport branch opened, Waterbury, Conn.-based Webster Bank is constructing a branch roughly a quarter-mile away in Wickford Junction, undeterred by the presence of either Citizens or BankNewport.
The unending drive for new customers is spurring intense competition within the industry, particularly in growth areas like South County.
Brenda Farrell, assistant vice president of public affairs for Webster and a North Kingstown resident, said there seems to be enough business in South County to satisfy several banks.
“All you have to do is look at South County and you can see how it’s growing,” she said. Plans for future development of Quonset Point and Davisville translate into “good opportunities for a commercial bank.”
Robert E. Maddock, executive vice president of BankNewport, called his bank’s new office site a “prize” that “can’t be beat,” in part due to the great visibility from Route 4.
The bank’s marketing survey – conducted by Advantage Marketing Information in North Kingstown – revealed a “sizeable number of customers” in South County who were unhappy with their current banking relationships and ready to switch to another bank, Maddock said.
And the demographics made sense. The South County area – properly known as Washington County – is a leading growth area of Rhode Island right now, a point confirmed by the marketing survey.
“There are enough people moving into the area, and also people who are less than satisfied with their current banking relationship,” Maddock said, “to make this work for us.”
As banks compete for customers they are challenged to identify what makes them unique, or better than the competition.
“Compared to our competition, we tend to try to figure out what our customers need, and we staff to that,” Maddock said. BankNewport has 10 branches on Aquidneck Island and will open a second South County branch in Narragansett in June.
Even before the bank had a presence in town, BankNewport offered to sponsor the Wickford Arts Festival in 2006, a partnership that continues to this day. The popular summertime arts festival never had a sponsor before, according to Kathleen A. Charbonneau, assistant vice president for BankNewport public relations.
Maddock noted that BankNewport is privately held, with no shareholders to please and no urgent push to cut costs by laying off employees. The wait for a teller is shorter than at most banks, Maddock maintained, and BankNewport makes a point of having a real person answer the phone at the main office and at each branch.
The employee-turnover rate at Citizens Bank is also low, according to Karl Schofield, the bank’s retail director, so customers generally see familiar faces behind the counter when they come to Citizens.
“You want to see the same person when you go into the bank every day,” he said. Most Citizens employees live in the communities where they work, he added, and are “deeply rooted” in local activities.
And like most local banks, Citizens Bank sponsors special programs. Those at Citizens include recognizing community volunteers, helping homeless shelters pay their winter heating bills and providing backpacks for needy students at the start of school every year.
Webster Bank – whose North Kingstown branch will open this summer – is a relative newcomer to the Rhode Island market, having come to the state in 2004 when it acquired First Federal Savings. The bank has 10 branches in Rhode Island and 180 in New England.
Webster “offers the same services as larger banks, with the customer service and personal touch of a small bank. ‘We find a way’ is our motto,” Farrell said.
In the community, the bank works to, among other things, support local organizations that encourage affordable housing. And it provides special low-rate loans for eligible first-time homebuyers in its Hope Mortgage Program, Farrell said.
Providing services at times and places convenient to the consumer, rather than the bank, is an effort that Rhode Island banks are increasingly coming to appreciate. Webster, for instance, will install ATM machines in about 150 Walgreens stores in Rhode Island and nearby Massachusetts within the next month, according to Farrell.
Bank Rhode Island was the first in the state to offer weekend banking services, starting several years ago, so some branches are open Saturdays and/or Sundays, according to James DeRentis, the bank’s chief business officer.
Citizens Bank recognized that customers wanted more time and more places to do their banking, opened branches in more than 160 supermarkets in New England, including the Stop & Shop stores in Rhode Island. “People need diversity,” Schofield said. “They want to take care of their banking business in person when it’s convenient to them, so we as a bank have tried to adjust.” •
