Between the rise in social media use and recent studies discovering how important customer service is to clients, it's no surprise banks and other businesses are putting more focus on their social media sites to attract customers.
One Facebook application brings customers in with a mortgage loan application on the page itself, and many marketing departments have social media campaigns. This month, the National Australia Bank (NAB) opened a social media command center to answer all questions that come through the bank's social media sites.
The office will be staffed by seven employees from the bank's digital and corporate offices, and will be staffed every day leading up to Christmas specifically to reach the 5,000 or more customer questions and concerns over the bank's Facebook, Twitter, Google +, YouTube and LinkedIn pages.
NAB partnered with a marketing firm to create the social media office when the bank found that customer concerns through social media were growing by 10 percent each month. The bank's social media community grew by over 350 percent in 2012 alone.
Turning social media into profits
One study found that customers are willing to pay more for better service, and the biggest concerns most customers have were the slow process for applications processing. While social media may not be able to speed up the mortgage process itself, the ability to answer customers' questions and concerns quickly through social media tools may offer a similar approach.
Customer management software can also offer like-minded tools to offer the best service to clients and involve customers. Software can help banks keep track and analyze individual customer needs to create stronger solutions, especially for loan originators unable to open social media-only offices.
