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How 16 retail banks handle social customer service

Last week I conducted an investigation into how 20 top UK retailers handle social customer service. It was a fascinating insight into the world of Twitter customer care and revealed just how a consumer’s experience can vary from brand to brand.

This week I’m turning my attention to retail banking. 

Earlier today I interviewed First Direct’s senior communications manager Amanda Brown and learnt some best practice tips as well as guidance on what to expect from aiming a Twitter enquiry towards a bank.

Will I experience the same level of personality as I did with non-banking retail brands? Will I have to be taken to a more secure channel? Will the banking industry just be too busy to answer my question?

Let’s find out…

How First Direct handles social customer service

It matters little whether you’re a shoe retailer or an online bank, if your brand operates a social channel, consumers will want to talk to you on it.

As I discovered in last week’s investigation into how 20 top UK retailers handle social customer service, the most successful brands are the ones that are not only quick to respond, but also genuinely helpful and clearly written with personality.

This is all well and good in retail, where perhaps it’s more acceptable to adopt a more relaxed, fun tone of voice, but how difficult is it for a financial services brand to not only maintain an efficient customer service channel that fully complies with banking regulations that’s also human?

Today I talked to senior communications manager Amanda Brown at First Direct to gain some insight into how the online and telephone based bank handles customers on social. 

Is this the PR agency of the future?

For the last two years, the PRCA, the UK’s professional body for the PR industry, has run a project looking at what the PR agency of the future might look like. 

We’ve debated topics around revenue models, structures, specialisms and employee motivation and, while looking to the future is always a fascinating pursuit, this year we decided to look a bit closer to home and investigate and celebrate examples of innovation that are already happening within the industry.

Today, we’ve released a series of case studies looking at five UK PR agencies that have already taken steps to innovate. We hope they will prove to be a source of inspiration to agencies looking to futureproof themselves.

Here are five key themes that run throughout the case studies and, of course, the case studies themselves.

Lookalike audiences: the next big thing in marketing?

Now that Twitter has rolled out functionality which is a lot like Facebook’s Lookalike Audiences, it’s time to take a closer look at what lookalike audiences are, how to use them and why you would.

Previously I’ve written about Facebook Custom Audiences, which create an advertising audience out of an email list. And I’ve also included ‘lookalike audiences’ as one of the key features that makes Facebook such a compelling place to advertise.  

So far, though, I have avoided going into too much detail about lookalikes as they were somewhat unique to Facebook and required specialist knowledge.

But with Twitter’s recent announcement that they, too, will support lookalike audiences, it’s time to cover them in greater detail.  

That is, there is now some agreement among the social media powerhouses that lookalike audiences are an effective strategy for reaching people on social media who may be interested in your product or service – so they are certainly worth learning more about.

Five of Econsultancy’s best infographics from 2014

Here’s a round up of infographics, which we’ve created to accompany some of our survey reports this year. 

The topics we’ve covered include cross-channel trends, budgets, data-driven marketing and essentials skills for modern marketers.

Enjoy!

LEGO: putting community first with five inspiring social campaigns

LEGO makes for a brilliant and satisfying case study for hundreds of reasons. 

It helps that it’s one of the most beloved brands on the planet, appealing across generations and ages. It constantly remains relevant by aligning itself with quality licenses and innovations, whilst staying true to its own brand identity. 

It also has achieved content marketing triumphs that most other brands would kill for and a social strategy that puts the majority of its focus on community engagement.

Therefore it’s great idea to check in with the company on a regular basis to see what it’s been doing on its digital channels, to offer inspiration for your own endeavours.

We also have LEGO’s global head of social media Lars Silberbauer-Anderson talking at our Festival of Marketing in November, so please join us for a two day celebration of the modern marketing industry.

How to blast your Twitter engagement rates through the roof

Engagement. That word means a lot of different things to a different people, but there’s no denying the fact that we all want it.

Whether it’s comments, shares, Likes, Retweets… engagement shows you just how much people care about your brand. 

Part of my role at Econsultancy is getting people to engage more with our content on our social channels, so I thought I’d list a few methods that should see your engagement rocket.

Come on, let’s go and blow the doors off… 

Why variety is the spice of online retail

More than 10m iPhone 6 devices were sold during the opening weekend. This is record breaking, even for an ecommerce giant like Apple.

Carrying a wide assortment of products and knowing your competitors’ inventory can keep you from falling behind in the ecommerce industry. 

With numerous retailers carrying millions of items, it is almost too large to wrap your head around.

How Cancer Research benefits from agile working practices

This year has seen the emergence of a new trend in charity fundraising – viral, nomination campaigns.

The most recent example was the ice bucket challenge phenomenon that swept round the globe fuelled by celebrity endorsements, eventually raising more than $90m for the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Association.

But earlier in the year Cancer Research benefited from its own spontaneous viral campaign when women began posting photos and donating with the hashtag #NoMakeupSelfie.

Cancer Research was in a position to make the most of this opportunity because it has already adopted agile working practices within its digital team.

To find out more about this process I spoke to senior digital services manager James Gadsby Peet, who will also be speaking at Econsultancy’s Festival of Marketing in November.

The two-day conference is a celebration of the modern marketing industry, featuring speakers from brands including LEGO, Tesco, Barclays, FT.com and more. 

How 20 top UK retailers handle social customer service

Last week I took to Twitter posing as an ‘innocent’ customer and asked 20 of the UK’s top retail brands a variety of questions.

They were all pretty simple: “what time does my local branch shut?” “Can I return online purchased items to a high street branch?” “When will this item be back in stock?” Theoretically nothing any social media team couldn’t easily answer.

The purpose of this was to test the speed, responsive and helpfulness of these brands’ social customer service.

I also looked at whether each brand stated clearly that it was available for customer service, if it operated a separate customer service account from the main Twitter channel and whether it published its operating hours within its profile.

Before we get on with the ranking though, a little on the importance of social customer service…

Predictive marketing: a new dimension?

At Econsultancy we do a number of events and research focused on B2B marketing. Indeed the upcoming Festival of Marketing has a whole stage dedicated to it.

A recurring theme is the relationship between sales and marketing.

In most B2B organisations, sales is still the dominant function. We often hear that sales and marketing should work more closely to together, focus on the whole customer journey, establish agreed processes, terminology and definitions (what exactly do we mean by a ‘sales qualified lead’?), hand off points and so on. 

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