Not all banks' direct selling agents (DSAs) are making blind calls when it comes to cross-selling products.
Many foreign and private sector banks are targeting customers based on their lifestyle, age, profession, place of work and the type of transactions undertaken.
This means banks like Standard Chartered will not send a frequent flyer offer to a customer who rarely flies or has never flown.
Similarly, some banks will not send direct mailers on home loan products to those under 30 years.
"According to our internal study, we do not expect response for a mortgage loan from the age group between 25 to 35 years. Our customers who do respond to calls made by DSAs are those over 35 years of age," said Standard Chartered Bank head of business intelligence unit Sedjwick John Joseph.
Standard Chartered Bank and Citibank have gone for transactional segmentation when it comes to cross-selling their wares.
In the process, banks are outsourcing their non-core banking activities to business intelligence entities such as SAS, whereby banks can focus on their core competence and gain business through upsell and cross-selling.
The whole idea is to understand the profitability of the customer and cross sell only those products he is likely to purchase. This leads to a two-fold benefit whereby banks' revenue increases as the response rate improves by a minimal of 25-30 per cent, said Joseph.
"When we know our target group, we can be certain of nearly 100