Public Relations and Customer Relations in Banking

Banks, financial intermediaries involved in the service sector. Public relations are handled within the framework in customer relations in banking sector. But, public relations are not limited customers of a bank. Public relations activities contain all environmental relations of a bank, inside and outside. In addition, banking, although accepted within the private sector, is recognized in the size of the public service for the reason of service dimension of the activities of banking. For this reason, handling public relations activities in banking sector within the framework of fully customer-oriented approach will be an incomplete approach. Semi-publical nature of banking and the reality of that the banking capital is depended on people s confidence and power and prestige of the bank, public relations activities of the banking sector should be constituted in accordance with. Therefore, a customer oriented model depended on customer satisfaction and marketing approach oriented to sell services and products of a bank, is not acceptable for banks to create a sense of public relations. Demoting the phenomenon of public relations to marketing and customer relations limits the meaning and capacity of public relations. The main objective of the public relations activities is to provide the confidence and the support of the people to bank. Public relations mean management of prestige within this framework. Therefore, public relations activities of contemporary institutions should be handled within a large framework including social responsibilities instead of a fully customer oriented model. Customer relations of a bank should be different from other companies, also. Customer relations approach of a bank should depended on professional knowledge, professional ethics and the protection of institutional prestige more than marketing and sale of products and services of a bank.