SMART

The owner of a small business is unhappy with the service she hasbeen
receiving from her bank and has decided to move her accountto a rival bank.
Her decision on which bank to choose will be basednot only on the estimated
annual bank charges which each bankwill levy, but also on the following
benefit attributes:
a) The proximity of the local branch
b) Whether the local branch has a small business adviser
c) The maximum automatic loan allowed
d) Whether a telephone banking facility is offered

The alternative banks together with their estimatedannual costs and the
scores the business owner has allocated foreach of the benefit attributes
will be given later.
 Clue
Estimated annual
charge ($)
Central 3000
Northern 5000
Direct 2000
Royal 1000
Marks 4000
 Clue

For the business owner, the bank with the closest proximity is the Northern
Bank local branch, while the farthest one is Central Bank local branch. The
proximity improvement score of moving from Central Bank to Marks Bank
is 90. This improvement of moving from Central Bank to Marks Bank is
third times better than of moving to Royal Bank. She also state that moving
from Direct Bank to Marks Bank is worth 20 improvement score.
 Clue

Only Direct Bank and Royal Bank that do not

have a small business adviser.
 Clue

Royal Bank has the lowest maximum automatic loan

allowed among all the banks she considered. On this
maximum automatic loan allowed, the improvement of
moving from Royal Bank to Marks Bank is 20 points
according to the decision maker. However, the
improvement of moving from Royal Bank to Central
Bank is twice better of moving to Marks Bank. Its also
twice better to move from Royal Bank to Northern Bank
than to move to Central Bank in term of maximum
automatic loan allowed. Direct Bank has the highest
maximum automatic loan allowed.
 Clue

Only Direct Bank and Royal Bank that offered a

telephone banking facility.
 Clue
The business owner is then asked to imagine that she has her account with a hypothetical bank
which had the lowest scores on all of the benefit attributes. She is then asked to imagine that
each attribute could be switched to its best possible value and asked to rank the attractiveness of
these possible switches. Her ranks are given as:

Rank Switch
1 Lowest maximum loan facility to highest
2 No telephone banking facility to existence of this facility
3 Non-availability of small business adviser to availability
4 Least close branch to closest branch

In the business owner opinion, the swing from the bank without telephone banking facility to the
bank with one is about 50%. She also stated that the swing from the bank with the farthest
proximity to the bank with the closest proximity is about 10%, while the swing from the banks
without small business adviser to the bank with one is about 30%.