Customer Insights for Banks via Social Media
Talk to a bank about social media, and you may see it shift or squirm in its chair a bit. But talk to a bank about customer data? Likely, it will lean in and listen carefully. So what happens when banks realize they can access customer feedback and observe consumer behavior via social media?
They start paying attention to the social networking sites, blogs and discussion forums, says Robert Stowe England in Learning from Customers in Social Media, a recent article at Banking Strategies. In the article, England quotes Brad Leimer from Mechanics Bank, who says, “The majority of institutions are still dipping their toes into what data they get out of social channels. … It’s not about the science, the analytics and the algorithms; it’s really about better understanding customers.”
When banks get good at gathering and analyzing the data, they can apply it to many areas of business. Citing Beyond the Arc’s Steven Ramirez, England writes, “Banks that have been engaged with social media for several years are moving from simply gathering customer sentiment to actually using the data for predictive analysis in the areas of customer service, customer retention/loyalty and new business opportunities.”
Of course, social customer data can also be used to inform marketing strategies directly and indirectly tied to the areas mentioned: customer service, retention and acquisition. When it comes to engagement in the social world, each bank’s level of comfort is different. However, no bank is exempt from the impact of social on its business.
In fact, “63% of companies using social media say it has increased marketing effectiveness” (HubSpot’s 120 Awesome Marketing Stats, Charts & Graphics), and according to Banking on Social Media: The Financial Services Brands That Get Social, more than 40% of “those with high net-worth younger than 50 consider social media a key channel for communicating with their banks.”
Want to use social data – and energy! – to your advantage? Let’s talk!
