Trust Me, I'm a Banker
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Banks need to build trust with customers through social media by being authentic, polite, and providing value rather than just promoting products. The document discusses how financial institutions can use social media channels to connect with customers on a personal level and establish trustworthiness through genuine engagement and community building rather than aggressive advertising alone.
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Trust Me, I'm a Banker
- 1. Trust Me, I’m a Banker Building trust using social media channels Social Media & Financial Services Forum | March 19, 2013 | #BDI1 Jennifer Spencer (@jennalyns) Digital Communications & Community Manager PerkStreet Financial (@perkstreet)
- 3. ZOMG LIKE US WE HAVE THE BEST CHECKING EVAR! Psssst. Wanna buy a checking account?
- 12. In Summation 1.Be yourself. 1.Be nice. 1.Bring donuts.
Editor's Notes
- It’s no surprise that trust is a big problem in banking today. Banking processes are hard for some of us to understand, let alone our customers. We haven’t always done the best job of explaining the why behind the what. Sometimes we haven’t even been very nice. And for banks with branches, sometimes all it takes is a great teller or branch manager to turn a situation around and make a lifelong loyal customer. But what do you do when you don’t have branches or tellers because you’re an online only bank? You turn to social media.
- Let me start this talk by saying that while there are lots of social media platforms, I’m going to be talking mostly about Facebook and Twitter today, since that’s where the majority of our audiences are and since they are the social channels where we find it most effective to communicate with them. We’ve tried a few kinds of communication in these channels – contests for ecap, searching for keywords in Twitter and reaching out to people looking for new accounts. But it was a lot of work without a lot of return, and we decided what social media was NOT good for: selling checking accounts,discussing detailed banking account information, or explaining complicated banking processes in 140 characters. But what we WERE doing in social media was building trust and making personal connections.
- Very personal connections.
- Now you may be thinking, “Connections are ok, I guess, and trust is useful, but how can you measure that? And what does that mean to our stakeholders?” You know how powerful word of mouth referrals are, and they can come from people who aren’t even customers. We have a great story about a guy named Joel who is not a PerkStreet customer, who was declined for an account, but got to know us over Twitter and Facebook and has sent 4 of his family members and another 4 or 5 customers our way. We don’t even offer a referral bonus, and because he’s not a customer we can’t put extra perks in his account. He trusts us. He feels a connection to us. And he wants to share that in a way that saves us marketing dollars. Right now we’re developing some tests for our social channels that support efforts for activation. Almost worse than not getting a new customer is getting a new customer who then lets their account sit stagnant. Not only is that not putting money into the system, it’s costing the bank money to keep those accounts on the books. Of course you want customers to actively use their accounts. Our social team is developing tests to support activation efforts including using video how tos and responses to show how to get started with the account, as well as more personalized engagement efforts targeted to brand new customers to help keep us top of mind and, we hope, top of wallet. So yes, the short story is that building trust can help build the bottom line.
- Today I’m going to talk about three really specific ways we’re using social media to build trust. The first is building trust with people who are potential customers. Our Twitter or Facebook accounts may be their first interaction with us, whether they stumble onto us or find us through a friend. We do a few simple things that make a difference – we use our intials on a direct reply to someone on Twitter, we sign our names to all Facebook comments and most posts, and we tell folks who they’ll be talking to in our Twitter bio and Facebook “about” section. When we look for measures of success here, we’re really looking for people who are not customers to engage in conversation with us, and a 100% response rate to questions. We also look for people who call us out by name, although to be honest that’s only happened thus far with current customers, and usually when they’re angry.
- Speaking of customers, once they’re part of the PerkStreet family, as we say, we like to keep the conversation going. We keep them engaged and keep us top of mind with discussion questions and topics that are on brand (which for us means ways to save money and live a better financial life) and that create more ways for them to connect with us and keep us top of mind. We also keep their trust by setting expectations and meeting them. For instance, we sign off on Twitter every night, and we don’t respond after sign off. I’ll be honest and give a hat tip to Citizens Bank for that idea. What that’s done is reduce our overnight Twitter questions from an average of 10 a night to 1 or none a night. We don’t sign off on Facebook but we stick to a schedule that keeps us offline early mornings and late nights and one where we have a minimal presence on weekends. Our customers help to police each other to call with immediate assistance, while finding out that even in odd hours we do respond to urgent matters. A third thing we do to help build trust is connect offline, with phone calls and handwritten notes. Anything we can do to get a bit of ourselves into the hands of customers gives them something to look back on, something tangible, something to share with others.
- Or wear on vacation. We’re measuring trust by tracking engagement and sharing metrics on Twitter and Facebook. In the future we have plans to track referrals with a formal referral program, as well as track our activation rates in tandem with our activation initiatives in social media.
- Now, you’ve probably only half listened to everything I’ve said because you’re thinking, “No way. My compliance department would have my head on a silver platter if I tried something like this.” Building trust isn’t just for your external audiences - build trust with your compliance department.
- This is not you. You are not a free elf. But you’re not a house elf, either. Think of yourself as a collaboration elf, working with your compliance department to bring happiness to regulators and customers alike.
- Our compliance and social teams share a group on Yammer. It’s a social platform that we use within our company to connect with each other – post files we use often, host discussions, plan events, and keep each other in the loop. By being transparent and communicative with compliance, just as with customers, you’re building trust and a strong relationship.
- Just remember – be yourself with potential customers. Sign your name to everything so they get a chance to know you before they entrust their money to you.Be nice to customers – be friendly, engaging, and think of each interaction as building a relationship. If you’ve ever worked in fundraising, consider each customer to be a donor. Be good to compliance. Talk to them often, keep them in the loop, explain the whys not just the whats, and bring them donuts.