Customer Growth Hinges on Your Marketing Plan After Acquisition
By Marilyn Kennedy Melia
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Consumers are increasingly spreading money across institutions in response to offers – with “silent-switchers” entering the banking lexicon to describe the trend. Even new checking customers, once considered reliable to become anchored to an institution, could be temporary.
J.D. Power research conducted between January- August 2026 finds customers who left other checking accounts open when opening a new account hovered around 50 percent. Those secondary account openers could be capturing a bonus and moving on.
Key insight: Marketing budgets are wasted on promotions unless institutions prioritize the post-acquisition phase.
Need to Know:
- A disciplined plan to scrutinize early account activity informs next best actions to secure switchers.
- Ninety-day onboarding with well-time messaging and personal communications can sway customers to anchoring services.
- Make it easy for customers to make transfers of direct deposit and other services.
- Some institutions aren’t coordinating the necessary elements to succeed. But evidence suggests opportunities for both large and smaller banks and credit unions to gain stable accounts in this silent-switching environment.
Early Account Data Is a Must-Watch
“The institution should be measuring how much financial activity it captures in the subsequent 30,60, and 90 days post-opening,” says David Albertazzi, director of Datos Insights’ retail banking & payments practice.
Unless activity like direct deposits, bill-pay, and debit card use show in that first 90-day period, it’s likely the account will go dormant. “A customer with $20,000 parked may still consider another bank primary,” says Christina Lindley, founder, VPRG Consulting. A smaller account with “paycheck and household bills running through may be far more valuable.”
Connected customer data platform analytics and event detection capabilities automate activity tracking and also trigger messaging at various points of new account holders’ onboarding journey. Alternatively, institutions without this tech can “compare daily core files, when core includes account, transaction, balance, and person/profile information,” to send timely SMS, email, etc. notes Chris Ribeiro, founder of Starlight Analytics.
Checking, while a major focus, isn’t the only product drawing switchers and meriting early activity analysis. Cornerstone Advisors research conducted for LendKey shows that Gen Z especially is “moving part of their paychecks to higher yield savings,” reports Elizabeth Gujral, director of research, Cornerstone Advisors. Credit cards are also a target for switchers, with J.D. Power reporting that 65% of all new cards opened in Q3 2025 were additional cards.
Key insight: Services adopted post-opening are the acquisition KPIs that really count.
The Right Communications Can Pry Customers from Former Relationships
Silent switchers typically open additional accounts without intending to transfer more of their financial life.
Communication, informed by what actions customers have or haven’t taken post-opening, are key to developing a stable customer relationship, as long as they’re delivered during onboarding, “while you still have their attention,” says Gujral.
Distinct from cross-selling, onboarding messaging should convey that the institution is attentive to the customer journey. Albertazzi suggests language like:
- “Your debit card is active. Here are the remaining steps to make this your everyday account.”
- “Your paycheck is here. Would you like to move your recurring payments?”
Consider the value of additional rewards. The Financial Brand has previously reported a Capgemini finding that 52 % of customers say they would buy more products if incentives were tied to overall engagement, rather than a single product.
Paul Schaus, founder of CCG Catalyst, likes the idea of strengthening engagement – not necessarily cross- selling loans or other products –during the critical 90-day on-boarding period with incentives. But instead of immediate rewards, he suggests tying them “to durable behavior … like direct-deposit still active at 90-days.”
Key insight: Let customers know you value their new business and make other features enticing.
Make It Easy for Customers to Migrate Services from Other Institutions
No matter how sweet the incentive for adopting a service, if executing a transfer is a painful hassle, customers will abandon the process, says Ribeiro.
“Switch tools” embedded in onboarding, which can transfer payroll-deposits or re-point recurring debits, “with taps” instead of submitting paperwork to employers and other financial institutions, are a near-necessity for banks and credit unions placing a priority on capturing silent-switchers, Schaus maintains.
But many institutions, particularly smaller ones, lack embedded switch tools. The alternative is to have human bankers handle as much of executing these changes as possible. “Concierge switching is far better than just [handing the customer] a brochure,” Schaus says.
Datos Insights researched the available account opening platforms serving community institutions, and found direct-deposit switching tools were standard, and available at “community-bank” economics. “What’s missing at most institutions is the decision to buy it,” explains Albertazzi.
Automated switches can remove hassles but may not eliminate them completely. For instance, some companies’ payroll process may require submitting paperwork, says Ribeiro.
Key insight: If cultivating new customers is a priority, tools and training staff to make migrating easy are priorities, too.
Focused Institutions Can Win New Stable Accounts
There’s a new acquisition playbook in response to silent switchers.
With J.D. Power’s Q3 2025 Financial Services Churn Data and Analytics research finding that 72% of additional and replacement checking accounts are opened with another provider, and that 54% of those become the primary account, some banks and credit unions are capturing new customers’ longer-term.
“Treat every new account as an audition the institution intends to win,” Schaus advises.
Many institutions are well aware of switchers but aren’t fully implementing the necessary elements to grow the relationships, says Albertazzi. That’s evidenced by Datos Insights’ Bank Executive Survey which finds that 62% of respondents already deploy triggered alerts based on real-time activity, 57% use relationship-based pricing/rewards and 50% have profile/relationship-based offer optimization. “But only 19% identify improving onboarding processes as a major near-term investment priority, which tells us there is still a gap between having these capabilities and orchestrating them specifically around relationship conversion,” Albertazzi says.
A focus on acquisition as a 90-day process is a pre-requisite for success. “The gap between institutions that convert quiet switchers and those that don’t is not measured in dollars of technology spend,” says Schaus. “It is whether a named person looks at that report weekly with the authority to act on it. Reprioritizing existing spend and existing people gets most institutions most of the way.”
Bottom line: Community banks and credit unions have special strengths in the switch fight. “They can be much more deliberate during the first 90-days of the relationship,” Albertazzi explains. For example, if a new checking customer starts making a $2000 deposit every two weeks, community bankers can personally call the customer, offering to help automate recurring deposits, he illustrates.
