Right before I planned my trip to that town, I had it all mapped out. I could still remember the streets and the location of the house where I grew up. Unfortunately, upon getting there, I was lost.
Things were not the way I left them. Things have changed. Buildings have been remodelled, new ones have been built and even the house I lived in has changed. As I ponder on this, I realised that changes have occurred in our lives and businesses. Yesterday’s customers are not where they used to be. They have moved but banks still think they are still where they left them yesterday. Today’s customers now spend more time on social media platform; thanks to mobile phones.
Recently, Facebook’s Director of Product Management for Platform Monetisation, Deborah Liu, said to banks at Money2020, “Your customers are here – engage them here.” More bank customers spend as much as 25 per cent of the time spent on mobile devices on Facebook and other social media platforms. Only a few Nigerian banks are doing pretty well on social media; others are only updating their platforms. This should serve as a wakeup call for banks to look hard at how their customers are using social media and see if their social media efforts are sufficient.
According to The Global Retail Banking Digital Marketing Report 2013, the average spending on social media for banks now is “miniscule,” and has “plateaued.” More can be done on the social media platform for banks apart from engagement and interaction. Some banks feel it is easy to go social but do they really scale? Social media can work for banks in two ways: as a channel and a disrupter.
Social media can serve as a channel, a communication conduit that has the potential to strengthen the relationship between banks and customers in ways dating back to the glorious days of relationship banking, when bankers knew their customers by sight. Social media helps your brands to be human. It helps large banks build human relationships at scale. Relationships are created and retained via social media not by Customer Relation Management software. Gathering data about customers is not being social. As more than 50 per cent of Africa’s populations are in their 20s, things are changing; expect more changes. Retail banking has changed to “Social Retail Banking”.
Going social can also disrupt the way banks interact with customers. There is information flowing on social media about your bank. Information flows both ways in the social media conversation and this can work to the bank’s benefit or harm. Social media brings tremendous complexity for banks. Social media is disrupting the way people functioned over the years. Customers are connected at an unprecedented scale. They now have more information about anything at their disposal. More specifically, customers may have more information than the marketing person speaking with them may have.
This may also pose a great challenge for brand management. Bank marketers operating over social media represent their organisations. People feel they are talking not to a person, but to the bank. When a customer has a problem with a bank attendant, say the customer service, for instance, if he dislikes or registers his discontentment with the person, he actually takes his disapproval up with the bank socially. Check the social media sphere to prove me wrong. In fact, check your social media platforms.
Since there might be complexity in managing social media for banks, here are my suggestions:
Implement a bi-directional conversation across all social media platforms: Banks using social media use it mainly for conversation — to enhance customer care. Make your conversation more bi-directional. This enhances your retail marketing. It reaches your customers right on time, transact business with them and likewise put them in the customer retention funnel. Bi-directional conversation is connecting. Let it work across your platforms.
Your customers do not trust you: We are talking about their money here. Do you think they trust you? So, narrow your message. Creating a hype or buzz via social media, which is what many banks are doing, does not make them social organisations. Every customer wants to know how good a firm is. However, achieving this is not by throwing your adverts on their faces. Relate, connect and engage with them. Interestingly, the place to accomplish this is the social media.
Mobile and social are collaborating to transform the way consumers interact with the world. Today’s customers do not care about you, but you need them. They do not have time to look for you; let your social networks find them wherever they are. Let your customers transact business in a place they actually want to be. Will you find them on social media?
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