Are you considering cashing in on the power of social media for your bank or financial institution? Social media for banking and finance means more than branding your products. One of the greatest values of social media for your financial institution may be in leveraging social media for banking customer service.
Rather than place a call to their bank or credit union’s customer service line, today’s customers and members are turning to social media for assistance, but over a third of customer service requests to banks via social channels go unresolved.
So how do you make sure you’re using social media for banking customer service effectively?
Monitor Mentions
Once you’ve set up your social media profiles on the platforms your bank members frequent, make sure you’re monitoring conversations on them carefully. Not everyone mentioning your bank online will post on your page or even tag you. Whether it’s because they made a typo or didn’t know your Twitter handle you’ll want to make sure you’re aware of these conversations so you can address any issues that come up.
Answer Member Questions
In today’s world, information is at our fingertips and customers expect answers quickly. Especially on social media. When it comes to social media for banking customer service, it’s important to have a dedicated team managing your presence. This allows you to be more responsive and get your members the answers to questions they’re seeking in “real-time” (and without that dreaded hold music).
We know what you’re saying…What about FINRA?
Questions about your bank’s holiday hours or what it means to refinance may be easy enough to answer, but those aren’t the only questions you’ll be asked. Sometimes members will ask questions that you’ll need their personal information to answer, but FINRA doesn’t have to stand in the way of using social media for banking customer service.
What can you do? You’ll want to make sure you have a social media policy in place. And don’t just set and it forget it. This policy will need to be updated frequently to ensure member information is protected and your team is keeping up with the latest platforms changes and FINRA regulations.
Team members tasked with managing customer service on social media for banks should be well versed in your policy on when they can answer questions publicly and when it’s better to direct the conversation to a private message or offline forum. It also helps to develop a social media FAQ document of questions commonly asked by your bank’s members and approved answers to help streamline the process.
Manage Relationships
Customer service is all about managing relationships with your members. The same is true when using social media for banking. Monitor your social media properties daily and be sure to respond to both the negative and positive comments.
Did someone complain about your bank? Your first instinct may be to delete these from the page but don’t hit that button just yet. Customers posting on your social media properties know the impact negative comments can have on your financial institution and pressing delete will only fuel the fire.
So what do you do? You’ll want to rectify the situation (and quickly) if comments like these arise. The fastest way to make a bad situation worse is to sound accusatory or defensive. Make sure your tone is calm and understanding. Respond quickly to customer feedback and make an effort to turn the situation around. But don’t stop there.
Responding to positive comments and reviews can be a great way to keep your audience engaged and show your appreciation for your bank’s members online. “Like” their comments and thank them for the positive feedback to take their already great experience one step further.
Write Content for Your Audience’s Needs
Social media can be a great way to distribute information quickly to a large audience. Is there a question (or a few) that keeps coming up? If the answer isn’t determined on a case-by-case basis, share content about it on your page. Maybe people want to know more about HELOC or car loans. Answering questions before your followers have to ask will help start your social media customer service off on the right foot.
Integrate with Other Technologies
Last but not least, you’ll want to make sure your social media profiles are integrated with your CRM or marketing automation platform. That way, you can track each customer’s social media interactions and know who’s asked about which products. This is especially important with larger teams. After all, no one wants to get passed around to different departments or receive the same answer three times.
Using social media for banking customer service isn’t always easy but when done correctly it can have great results. By offering stellar support on the platforms your bank’s members are on you’ll be well on your way to building relationships with your members and increasing engagement.
Kaitlyn is the Manager, Social Media at RDW and an all-weather beach enthusiast. When she’s not creating integrated social media strategies or launching campaigns, you can find her traveling and looking for the best local eats, hopefully at the same time.