Customer Service | Matt Andresen

As my grandmother told me often, we have two ears and one mouth, so by design we should listen more than we talk. I used twitter for a while without ever tweeting anything. I listened to what my competitors had to say and what people were saying about me. Then I slowly started tweeting. The important thing is to decide how you are going to use twitter.

When I was at Banker at Chase Bank , they were pretty early adopters of this type of social media. I believe they used it primarily to monitor their brand and then started using it as a more swift customer service tool. They say that every complaint is a possible opportunity, and Twitter allows you to exploit this. They started seeing better customer service scores and while bonuses were always based solely on checking accounts open (campaign), they started realize Twitter played a part push branch bonuses more toward service. Every single bank I talk to says that it is their service that makes them stand apart, yet so few are using the ONE tool that can exponentially make this a reality.

Still don’t believe me? Well, at Chase, I tested to see if they were paying attention (which previously they were not). I made a facetious comment about getting moving walkways into branches so it would force the confused customer into more efficiently ‘get in and get out’ strategy. I was later written up by my boss for inappropriate use of technology because this made it all the way up to Jamie Dimon, the Chase CEO. It was like watching a blooper reel as my boss sat me down to “write me up”; he couldn’t stop laughing. He was also in disbelief. I just sat back, smiled and exclaimed, “Wow, they really ARE paying attention now!”

So…if this type of medium can get the attention of the CEO of one of the biggest companies in the world, how do you think it will work on your current and potential customers. Give it some thought and stop being a twit and start with reading a tweet.

Alex Sion, President and Managing Director of MovenBank, talks about the future of financial services. MovenBank is seeking to provide customers with an entirely digital banking experience. MovenBank is currently in Beta. Sion says that the future of “banking is going to become less about product innovation and more about innovation for the client experience.”

Click image above to watch the short 4 minute video.

I had the privilege of listening to Brett King, MovenBank’s CEO and founder, talk at the ABA Marketing Conference this last September. While I didn’t agree with everything he said, Brett provided a much needed wakeup call to banks that are behind the times. King seemed to understand that banks are slow to change and that time was NOT on their side. King went on to say that in 1995 the average customer visited the bank 2-3 times per month. In 2011 it was 2-3 times per YEAR! Going to the bank is no longer defined by walking into a branch, bu rather using the bank’s services including the ATM.

Brett King speaking at the 2012 ABA Marketing Conference

In a prior post I quoted Rob Poyhard (professor of business administration at the University of South Carolina’s Darla Moore School of Business) saying that “In today’s world, we are all interconnected. Companies that are thinking about this proactively are the ones that are probably going to have an advantage in leveraging this technology. I’d be surprised if the first few companies that get in there don’t have a lasting competitive advantage.”

So if you are one of the banks that are “behind the times,” don’t panic yet. You still have time to get in the new marketing game. I recommend a sound written strategy of what, how and when. What is your strategy? How are you going to implement it and when is this going to be put into action? You don’t need to take a giant leap into this lifeline of social media, just try baby steps like Bill Murray tries to do in the movie, What about Bob? While a giant leap could just make you frustrated and cause interuption to an otherwise calming experience.