Socially Yours

When Mr. Dave Caroll posted his music video "United Breaks Guitars" on YouTube he never thought that his video will ever cause a damage of $180bn to the United Airlines Company. This famous musician from Canada was flying to Nebraska on United Airlines, and was very angry and hurt when the baggage handlers of the airline broke his Taylor Guitar worth $30, 000. His claims for the compensation was rejected by the airline company, stating that his case was not in compliance with the company's compensation policies. The video went viral and after the fourth day around 1.5 million people watched it, 2000 tweets, 777 blogs were based on that incident and 339 online portals reported this incident. The company lost around 10% of its market cap.

The Taylor Guitar Company reaped benefits through this video and they offered props for the next 2 music videos in this series. And that's the power of social media and these days customers are using this platform extensively for discussions.

The customer may not be a true King, but their convenience matters a lot and that's why the banking industry is eagerly adopting the social media platform for better customer services. Banks have become more conversation oriented than being, a pragmatic approach in a highly regulated industry. Are the customers reaping benefit of their banks' Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts and if they do, then how?

Wells Fargo, is on social media since 2006, is the first largest financial institution to use the social media platform. They found it promising and have two Facebook pages, many blogs, and four Twitter accounts and even have a YouTube channel.

Moven Bank, a New York based mobile banking company, they connect with their customers through social media. Moven even has a plug-in to transfer money to their customers Facebook friends! Moven which was listed in the Top ten coolest brands in banking is using the social media successfully than any other financial institution. Their customers can even open an account via their FB page, they are rewarded for their referrals, and for the time spend on Moven's social media page. Moven is planning to charge $5.95 monthly for the debit card use, but those customers who have brought in a referral account will be waived from those fees.

Barclays uses their social media accounts for product promotion, CSR activities, to get feedback, job postings, etc. HSBC has a separate FB page for students where they handle queries from students.

Consumers are willing to spend more on social media to get improved services if, the services are better, then more than 65% of the US customers are ready to give their personal info in social media. Globally, 7 out of 10 customers of the banks are willing to take up the help of virtual technology. Even though data theft is a big threat, consumers are ready to trust their banks for better services. According to a recent Cisco survey, 88% of the bankers believe that customers are ready to reap the benefit of virtual banking, 58% of the bankers believe that they can give more personal services and 63% of consumers are ready to meet a financial advisor online!