First Direct gets a social life
Thursday, November 5th, 2009 by Jon Clements
While the banks, collectively, may be short of friends right now, one bank is stashing away praise for its foray into social media.
First Direct - pioneers of the UK’s first telephone bank - launched its “live” site a month ago to resounding welcomes in online places such as here and here.
So, I think we can agree that a bank providing a forum for both good and bad comments from its customers is a bold move and one to be applauded.
But another interesting dimension to this is raised in First Direct CEO, Matt Colebrook’s customer message a month on from the launch.
While he describes the social media initiative (or is it a culture change?) as “a new voice for customers”, “the right thing to do” and “overwhelming” in the response it’s generated, he’s careful to qualify this with “Clearly we can’t be all things to all people” and “we won’t be able to offer everything that’s been suggested”.
And that’s fair enough. What social media gives customers is the chance to be heard and taken, perhaps, more seriously than before as their views are not kept behind closed doors or on a private phone call but in the visible, searchable online arena. But, for businesses, there will always be a limit, as Colebrook suggests, on what’s possible and customers have the choice to live within those limits, or not.
And maybe it’s this dilemma that causes social media anxiety for some organisations: “If we engage openly in an online forum with customers, will they criticise us or ask for things we can’t possibly provide, so disappointing them and harming our brand?”
Well, if they’re unhappy, they’ll talk about your brand whether you choose to engage with them or not. So, opting for the conversation provides an opportunity to turn the detractor around. And, to paraphrase Colebrook again, you won’t please all of the people all of the time. But if can demonstrate that you’ve listened and are taking the time to explain, publicly, what you can and can’t deliver, it places you ahead of the brand that says: “This is what we sell, are you havin’ it or what?”
So well done to First Direct and let other businesses take heart: social media shouldn’t be seen as the “lynch mob online”, but an ongoing discussion between company and customer that could even - gasp - be a win-win.
