Social Media Banking as keystone of the Digital Transformation Arch

As we overcome the ‘hype cycle ‘ with mushrooming technology innovations , banks in their quest for a ‘Next generation Banking ‘ model  with ‘social media’ will have a forward integration with the digital bank &  the backward liaison with the ‘intelligent (based on analytics) multichannel’. The upstream taking care of the integrated multichannel architecture, powered by analytics (real-time event management, etc.)  & need based offerings optimized by channels. At the other end remains the Bank as trust center leveraging the power of the power of mobile and payment services with the ‘Social Media doing its critical role of ‘ Customer engagement ‘based on personal interests, leveraging influencers and increasing customer intimacy’ as its listens, monitors, markets with optimized offerings and iterates the feedbacks back into the product.

In the ‘as is’ business scenario banks mostly cluster customers through traditional drivers (such as average revenue, cross-selling rate) and engage them on a “push” basis to a ‘To-Be’ in a rather tectonic shift to what a “Socially Engaging” Banks do. In the later interactions being much more personalized with banks clustering customers based on their interests and intentions communicated via their actions on social media (for instance, by “liking” or sharing something). The resultant being such clustered customers &   having dialogues with them daily on relevant subjects and offer products when customers need them. The bank subsequently becomes a daily partner, able to address client needs and play an active role along the entire purchasing path, instead of only engaging the client in the final phase.

In the game plan banks needs to be a listener as it sets to collect relevant feedback to feed other key components and tune initiatives vis-a-viv Customers ,Brands, product and initiatives. The feedback being in shape of customer complaint & sentiments with respect to existing products thereby enriching the customer profile as it sets to iterate its offerings. For the same the banks need to set up the following-

• Build Communities
  • Based on products, financial needs, non-financial needs and customer segment
  • Engage users
    • Based on Q&A sessions, “Offline” caring after online interception ,Customer care , Contests (to get influencers) ,  apps/videogames & Virtual branch

 With iterations to the existing products being always a continual exercise the banks set up on path for the ultimate step –product offering (leveraging the social information) and the same as members pass on the same to member

On the upstream where banks need to plug in the backward linkage banks could design an integrated customer experience based on a streamlined multichannel, approach and architecture whereby the multichannel customer experience is based on the right combination of online and offline processes and can be enhanced by focusing on dedicated advisory services (remote or digital). This enables banks to create micro-segments based on uniform demographics and social behaviors, and form the basis for defining strategic profit pools. The increased capture and application of customer data, properly managed and updated through an advanced CRM platform, can help enhance the value and return on product catalogues, commercial campaigns based on realtime propositions, as well as lower distribution costs by optimizing capacity by micro-segment preferences. Pervasive analytics based on effective customer data collection, micro-segmentation and predictive modeling to determine the most effective basket of products 3. Real-time interactions management that can increase conversion rates from inbound and outbound contacts

The branch is downstream should be the platform for opportunity to become a “one-stop shop” and satisfy all relevant customer needs starting from a unique point of contact built on partnership and customer trust. Analytics and marketing capabilities linked with mobile services are required. This means the bank must be able to leverage customer information gathered through the mobile device, such as mobile transactions (m-payments) and geo-localization .Once the payments solution is in place, the customer base can be better protected and the risk of customers changing providers is reduced, given the increased natural trust for payment services provided by banking institutions versus companies from non-financial sectors. In this way, the bank can assume the role of trusted advisor, supporting customers with financial and non-financial offerings and opportunities,. For all needs linked to economic choices such as buying a house, a car, or even supporting the customer preparing for marriage, the bank is able to support the customer from the very beginning and continue to do so throughout by leveraging its partnerships with non-financial institutions.

Facebook and Linkedin will be the operator for the “Share experience” ecosystem, Google for the “Search” ecosystem, big telecommunications companies for the “Connect me” ecosystem and big banks for the “Economic choices” ecosystem. Google also is an important player in the NFC ecosystem given its relationship with MasterCard and Citi has been allowing retailers more data about their customers thereby helping merchants target ads and discount offers to mobile device users near their stores.

In continuation of the privilege provided to retailers ,Google Wallet is passing payment information over existing payment protocols (including MasterCard PayPass and Visa PayWave), and the Nexus S smartphone—which Google developed with Samsung—is already enabled for NFC transactions.