Protecting Main Street:Measuring the Customer Experience in Financial Services for Business and Public Policy

"Paul Lubin's book provides clear, concise, and historical insight into the value of testing the consumer experience with financial products. A must read for anyone working in risk management or responsible for customer satisfaction within their organizations."-Marc Loewenthal. Senior Vice President, Chief Security/Privacy Officer for LPL Financial

"Protecting Main Street is an important book. Paul Lubin draws on his extraordinary depth of experience to show how measuring and auditing the consumer experience can point the way towards a financial services industry in which consumers are treated fairly and get the information they need to make more informed financial decisions. This is a compelling, practical book that should be a must read for those who want to better serve and protect consumers of financial products and services."-Eric Belsky. Executive Director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University

"Paul Lubin introduces a new, broader, and refreshing perspective of self-testing in this book. The view that self-testing not only benefits the financial institution but also the consumer by encouraging the institution to provide high quality products and services is novel. Furthermore, I believe Paul is right. This book is a must read for anyone interested in preventing unfair and unsound business practices as well as beginning and experienced users of self-testing."-Arthur R. Preiss, President, Preiss & Associates, LLC

"In these turbulent and complex financial times, this much-needed exposition on the role and responsibility of providers of financial services in ensuring positive customer experiences is outstanding. Lubin's delineation of mystery shopping, matched pair testing, and consumer surveys provides a solid foundation for ensuring fair and reasonable treatment of customers by lenders and sound financial decisions by consumers. Ultimately, this work should have a positive impact on government policy to benefit both firms and customers."-Jerome D. Williams, Prudential Professor of Urban Entrepreneurship and Research Director of The Center for ban Entrepreneurship and Economic Development. Rutgers Business School Newark and New Brunswick, Rutgers University

"The revelations in this book are critical to protect the customer experience and to repair public sentiment and confidence in the financial service markets. As we negotiate critical reparations of the financial service markets, Lubin's treatise prescribes actionable steps to manage systemic risks, protect the customer experience, and restore public sentiment. The research techniques advocated in Protecting Main Street are aggressive, proactive approaches to eradicate unfair and discriminatory practices from the financial service markets."-Sterling A. Bone. Ph.D., Marriott School of Management Brigham Young University

Paul C. Lubin has more than 30 years' experience measuring and improving the customer experience. He owned and operated one of the leading financial services market research firms in the country, Barry Leeds and Associates, and has worked for the leading financial institutions in America. He pioneered the use of market research to detect discrimination and unfair sales practices in consumer lending and developed self-testing programs for financial institutions facing allegations of discrimination and unfair sales practices.