I am a Bank and I am Boring

The below article was published in Qatar Today magazine- Jan 2012 issue. The article is about how can banks manage customer relationships online without just talking about banking and being innovative. Click on the below pics to continue reading.

"Text Version" 

 I am a Bank; Iam Boring

Financial Institutions are perceived to be not innovative and creative when it comes to Online Media and technology. Due to certain regulations and reputation issues, they have been a step behind other industries to make their presence felt online.

Let us explore few ideas that can help you gain foothold in the Online Conversations and interact with your customers.

I recently attended a panel discussion, where a question was raised on how to deal with customer issues raised on your social media channels. Panelists were convinced on the methodology of trying to contact the customer to get details of the problem and acknowledge the issue. Post understanding the issue, commit on resolving the same.

What if your bank’s customer service still gets criticized online even though you have taken efforts to engage with your customers online? Well, then you have to investigate the case and invest in enhancing your customer service. Online media is just another channel to communicate with your customer.

A few more ideas: -

Don’t just talk about banking

If you expect to build a relationship with your customer, you need to talk about various other topics that can build a conversation on social networking sites. If a customer needs to know about your products and offers, they can always go to your public website.

You can use Social Media tools to change the mean and greedy perception of Financial Institutions.

Check out Lloyds Bank Facebook Page. They are talking about the upcoming London Olympics with a countdown ticker. This has got nothing to do with banking. These initiatives create friendly online conversation and interaction that may not be facilitated by a bank otherwise.

Be a Startup Mentor

Have you ever thought about nourishing the potential young talent to form large enterprises? How about offering some advice on launching a start up? A bank has the financial capability and the expertise to mentor start ups. Use your online channels to give tips to people interested in learning more about the enterprise world. Your investment banking arm may probably fund the next Google or Apple.

Show you CSR initiatives.

Have you done something for the community, how about informing people via your Social Media Channels? Do you want volunteers for a CSR initiative, ask for it on your Social Media Channels and watch the response. Check out the Bank of America Page, asking for people who would like to volunteer for their “Building Opportunity” initiative.

Many financial institutions are involved in charity initiatives that go unnoticed. Their projects are not covered in the media and an average customer is not aware about these initiatives. Social Networks are great online tools to tell your customers about these projects and strengthen your brand.

Giveaways for your Online Fans

Customers love participating in competitions. This initiative encourages them to follow your brand online. Host a few competitions for your Social Media Channel Fans. Check out the Citi Bank Facebook page. They are giving an opportunity for their fans to win cash or jam with their favorite band.

How about offering your online fans a $ discount or a coupon to dine at their favorite restaurant.

I wanted to get a feel on what do people expect from their banks in Doha on Social Media Channels. Following is a summarized version of various comments I got from people on Twitter in Doha.

People expect their bank to be more interactive and provide online support for issues. They want instant answers to their queries and special offers for following/liking the brand. Many twitteratis complained that the banks never responded to their queries. Surprisingly, few of them replied that they were not interested in having a conversation with their bank on social networks, as banks are only meant to manage their money, not their relationship. There lies an opportunity for the banks to show that they can manage human relationships and just not financial ones.

Online surveillance of social-networking sites is a new trend for traders dealing in hedge funds and big banks managing customer assets. Stocktwits is a social, stock micro-blogging service monitoring emotions of stock market traders. You will find a community of traders and investors sharing market insight, ideas, charts and news streaming in real-time. This is true engagement of Financial Marketing with Online Media. An investment company, Derwent Capital Markets, has launched a £25 million hedge fund that will use the sentiment of Twitter messages to help guide its trading strategy

As we look forward to 2012, Financial Institution will continue to heavily invest in the Social Media and Interactive Marketing, and work on the revenues.

There is a strong possibility of structural changes in many organizations, where by Digital Channels, e-Marketing and e-Business will fall under one umbrella.

Emergence of Mocial Marketing

The below article was published in Qatar Today magazine, September 2011 issue. The article highlights innovative mobile marketing technique adopted by brands. Click on the below pics to continue reading.

"Text Version"

Emergence of Mocial Marketing

Mobile marketing has come way beyond sending the 160 character text. With the growing popularity of smart phones the scope of reaching your customer via the mobile channel has grown.

Mobile and social media are merging and this integration of social networking and mobile will change the way we reach out to our customers.

According to Silverpop, an email marketing firm, a survey revealed the following results –

More than 75 percent of the marketers polled stated that their campaigns are only somewhat “mocially” integrated or not at all integrated.

Twitter and Facebook dominate the social scene, while only four percent of respondents are currently using location-based services, such as Foursquare and Gowalla, in their marketing efforts.

  

QR (Quick Response) is one of the popular tools that has been successfully adopted by Online marketers for mocial marketing. QR codes, a decades-old technology that was first used in the supply chain and now has become a way of mobile marketing.

  

A QR code is a matrix or two-dimensional bar code readable by dedicated smart phone (camera enabled).

How do you use QR code: when you see the code on a billboard, magazine page, on the metro, etc, scan it with a smart phone that has the necessary code-reading software. The code can contain a text, image or can a redirect the person to a mobile website.

How can marketers use it – Share your campaign information that can include anything from special promotion and competitions to images. Use it on your print media to share additional info or some other message.

  

Benefit – You can always change the URL code in the QR to show different content. Unlike in print media, if there is a mistake in your marketing campaign you don’t need to reprint the content. When you hand out brochures, collection of data is almost close to impossible unless you conduct a survey later on. QR marketing is able to collect details of each access of the QR Code instantly.

QR Codes Fact Sheet (via Queaar a social communication platform): -

• Q2-2011, QR scanning traffic was rising at an astonishing rate of 9840% vs Q2 2010
• QR codes are scanned more by women (64%) than men (36%)
• 35-44 year old users have scanned the most
• 87% of users expect a coupon or deal when they scan a code
• 68% of scans are done via iPhone
• New York is the leading city in the US for QR code scanning
• The most QR codes scanned globally are in Japan

Who is using QR Codes?

Starbucks wanted to allow their customers to pay for their latte’s via mobile media. They thought it would be an old fashioned way giving them prepaid cards and then swiping them on POS machines. So they decided to develop an app for iPhone to help customer pay and top up their ‘e-card’ using their own mobile phones.

It works like this –

- punch in your Starbucks card info

- verify some details, and the iPhone app becomes the gift/e-card.

- A secure QR code is generated for the store to scan when you pay the bill.

This payment mode is now enabled over 1000 Starbucks stores in USA.

Nissan Motor Company has begun fixing QR codes on vehicle window of their 2012 Altima. The QR codes link users directly to a mobile optimized page that includes videos, features, vehicle inventory levels and more. The customer can give feedback and know more about the car they have bought.

  

Try creating your QR codes on : -

http://www.mobile-barcodes.com/

http://www.createqrcode.appspot.com/

The study of human behavior shows that incentives offered for completing a task, tend to be addictive.

An outright example for this is location based website – Foursquare. The mobile app encourages people to share their location wherever they are. The users try to check-in to locations several times to receive one of the several badges offered by the site.

  

The entire experience of achieving the “Mayor” status of a particular location gives users immense pleasure. The commercial side of this is that many retailers give their customers discounts/freebies upon achieving “Mayor” badge (or any other badge prescribed by the retailer). E.g. Dominos pizza in UK offers exclusive discount to anybody who checks into their outlet frequently and becomes the Mayor of that particular outlet.

As per a report published by ICT Qatar in 2011, on average, each household in Qatar owns 3.9 mobile phones and the country has a mobile penetration rate of 99%. About 57% of the individuals who own a mobile phone access internet via mobile. With access to high speed networks combined with usage of smart phones, makes a clear case of experimenting with Mocial Marketing in the country.

The emergence of this new marketing technique gives marketers a new channel to reach out their customers and build relationships. Customer engagement via mobile would be taken to the next level once brands are able to customize the experience.

Online Reputation Management - A Middle East Perspective

The below article was published in Qatar Today, August 2011 issue, highlighting how few brands in Middle East have started thinking about online reputation management. The article highlights issues faced by brands who completely ignore the importance of monitoring their online presence. Click on the below pics to continue reading.

"Text Version"

Online Reputation Management

On 17th June 2010 @sandeepgeetla tweeted the below rumour which led to a slide in the ICICI shares by 3.5 % in the intra day trading hours, however within hours the stock price recovered due to prompt action by the bank.

@gulpanag ICICI committed 3k crore fraud in US. Sebi fined 1 billion dollar on ICICI bank as the news goes..

ICICI bank is known to monitor 3-5k tweets per day via its Twitter handler @icici_care. The bank also monitors online conversations on Facebook, Blogs and other social mediums, to help stop rumors.

The bank responded to the user on twitter as follows:-

@sandeepgeetla These r baseless rumours abt ICICI Bank, request u to not pay heed to them & also not spread them further…”

ICICI has gone ahead and filed a complaint against the person with the cyber crime cell of the police and market watchdog SEBI (Securities and Exchange Board of India)

This is just an example of how a false rumor could damage your brand’s reputation online.

But, how many brands in GCC monitor Social Media Conversations?

The person may have had a bad experience with your brand; however there is a possibility that he or she was never heard. However, customers have found the web to share the experience with people.

There are many groups on Facebook, where customers share their experiences with other potential bank customers, which do influence choices to an extent. Many people resort to share their personal experience about anything on the web as it is a feasible medium to voice their opinion. This makes many brands vulnerable to online abuse, as some of these opinions may be rumors, which further emphasizes the need to have online monitoring tools.

You can use some of the below listed tools which are available online for free:-

Blog Monitoring - BlogPulse – is a blog search engine with several complementary tools such as Trend Search and Conversion Tracker that analyzes the data it collects.

Twitter Monitoring - Monitter – A real-time Twitter monitor for up to three keywords at a time.

Other Tools - Google Alerts – Your keyword search results are sent via e-mail for keyword mentions in news, web, blogs, video and groups categories.

Digimond – an online competitive intelligence solution company – has forecasted that by 2013, 4 million SMEs will be using online reputation platform to monitor their brands. According to Digimond 58% of the executives believe that risk reputation should be addressed by the management, however only 15% of them monitor it.

Recently there have been similar incidences in the online world in Qatar. Many Qtel users retorted against the poor customer service of the telecom company on Twitter using the hashtag #qtelfail. Qtel instantly responded to customer complains on Twitter to address issues.

I personally witnessed a change in the customer service of Qtel when I tweeted them about my Internet issue. I was called back by a service representative to understand my issue and a technician was at my home within few hours.

Recently Arabian Business reported that Qatar Airways was facing a series of complains from customers that claim to be local nationals about its services on Twitter using hashtag #qatarairwaysfail.

What is the Impact of such online posts? One bad customer experience would cost your brand many others.

Does the brand monitor these tweets/posts? It could be competitor brand spreading the rumor.

Many organizations have Internal Communication Departments who monitor print media for news but discount online conversations. What can a brand do to minimize the impact?

- Have a communications team to monitor online conversations and tackle rumors/complaints.

- Hire a PR/Marketing agency that can monitor the web 24x7.

- Have a strong e-Marketing team that can create a positive perception of your brand online.

- A negative review/complain demands special attention. Post public responses to apologize and try to win back the customer. You can privately message the reviewer to get detailed feedback.

Negative comments about your brand can hang an albatross around your neck if they appear frequently in online searches. A positive comment about your brand by clients is traditionally the best source of new business; online forums and recently sites like twitter and facebook act as a powerful word-of-mouth. Having an online presence is a must but tackling rumors/complains is a challenge. Brands will have to bear the brunt of online conversations if they continue to ignore this medium. Online conversations will make or break customer relations in the future as more and more people seek feedback from peers on the web.

Iwep Features in Creative Commons Qatar

I wannna Express blog has been listed on Creative Commons Qatar website as one of the featured works. This is a proud moment for me. A bit about creative commons - Creative Commons (CC) is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share.[1] The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons licenses free of charge to the public. These licenses allow creators to communicate which rights they reserve, and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators. (via Wikipedia). 

Get your CC license from Creative Commons website today.

Financial Institutions and Online Media - finding the right hook

The below article was published in Qatar Today magazine - July 2011 issue. The article summarizes various initiatives taken by banks to adopt Online Media to communicate with their customers. Click on the below image to contiue reading.

 

***TextVersion ***

Today most of the financial services companies are on a recovery mode and looking for optimistic signs in their books. While the financial pundits predict the possibility of economic recovery, I believe listening to your customers is what’s missing in most of the companies. Many financial and non financial companies are busy implementing what they want to but not what the customer needs.

In the era of Internet, Financial Institutions need to cautiously but firmly make place in the Online Media world to interact with the customer. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn are some of the many sites which can act as agents for these companies to spread their message.

Many banks have presence on Facebook, but lack of transactional capability may not attract customers to become a fan or member of that particular page. Having an information page about the products and services would be a good way to start with, but may not be immensely popular with the customers. Tapping Facebook will require banks to come up with a tricky formula of entertainment, sales and information in addition to providing a secure environment. Yet Facebook’s urge to go public with its user data may be discouraging for many financial intuitions to associate themselves with this website. To meet the legal and compliance requirements would be another horrendous task.

During my research, I came across an application on Facebook that allows users to perform financial transactions - Fiserv's My Money, which is now only available to credit unions, and may be offered to banks in the near future. Facebook users download the application, which helps them find and join a credit union, view account histories and balances, and make transfers.

Bank of America, Wells Fargo, ING DIRECT and First American Bank are among the many financial institutions using Twitter for marketing. Twitter is a tool which can be used to directly interact with your customers and inform them about the services. The online reply facility on Twitter can help a company obtain feedback or resolve customer issues.

The National Bank of Australia has managed to effectively use Twitter as a tool to deal with customer complaints and enquires. The bank gets 30 million calls a year on its Call Centre channel and Twitter may be an alternative to it.

Twitter can help banks build long term relationships and give more personal feel to it.

1. Reaching customers.

Public websites hold the transaction capability and remain the primary form of communication for the banks with customers. Increased communication and transparency, would help banks gain customer confidence and trust.  Having online presence would allow your customers to evaluate and discuss the bank’s brand and offerings. Direct feedback from customers would help banks improve those offerings and brand image. HSBC Direct, a U.K based bank uses its interactive website to get and publish customer feedback and discuss community issues. It uses blogs, Facebook and Twitter to interact with "Generation C," or the “Connected, Communicating, Content-centric, Generation."

2. Reducing costs.

Online communication would help the bank reduce costs significantly. Selling products, cross selling products to existing customers would help justify the online presence. Twitter as a communication medium is being seen as an alternative to Call Centers. It may not replace call centers but definitely help in optimizing call center resources. Usage of new technologies can help cut branch operations cost; for example, Deutsche Bank in Germany uses video chat for interacting with customers, thus reducing customer dependence on expensive channels like branches.

As I said before, financial institutions need to be Cautious with their presence in Social Media. One of the possible threats could be a fraudster posing as a bank employee and asking customer for credentials by setting up a similar profile. Online squatter could register themselves on behalf of financial institutions on social media sites and then negotiate with the companies to buy them back. Alternatively, phishing attacks are anyways looming on the Internet and you may be redirected to a site where there is possibility of compromising your personal details.

Banks are experimenting with this space but are yet to come out with a successful working model. Expecting a ROI on spend is not the way forward, as Social Media is still in its adolescence trying to develop such a model. This is just another form of communication tool available to reach to your customers which will ultimately in long term bring the dollars.

Boss we need to Socialize

The below article was published in Qatar Today's April 2011 issue. Click on the below pics to read.

Text Version

*****Boss - We need to Socialize…*****

The last conversation with your boss on adoption of Social Media may have left you stranded and you may be wondering how to convince him/her. You may conclude that the person is rigid not open to new ideas. A close minded person is difficult to convince and it requires strong will to change ones thought process. According to marketing guru Seth Godin, “a closed-minded worldview doesn't mean you're stupid, it means that you are selling yourself and your colleagues and your community short”.

Your boss is not stupid, probably ignorant. One of the best way to change perceptions and open a close mind is to present data in an appealing manner.

The adoption of Social Media in the Middle East for commercial purpose has been encouraging however it still needs to reach an advanced level. Senior management is still puzzled by the question – “Why the company should explore the Social Media route to reach their customers?”

Here are some tips that could help you to sell Social Media to your senior management:-

Show Them Facts and Figures

A survey conducted on Media consumption & habits of MENA Internet users in 2010 by Spot On PR firm based in Dubai showed that

- Social Networking is the second most popular activity carried out by Internet users after email.

- 32% of all Middle East & North Africa Internet users surveyed, bought products or services online

Spot On PR has reported that the Mena Population on Facebook has reached 17.3 million as of August 2010.

According to InsideFacebook.com, a leading source of news and analysis on Facebook, informed that Arabic language version of Facebook was the fastest growing language as of August 2010.

Blogs: Over 5 million blogs are tracked by Technorati, the “Bible” of Blogs with 600,000 being corporate blogs (Technorati)

Keeping up with the Competition

The hype of Social media would have caught your boss’s attention and there is a possibility that he/she may have seen some social media work at other corporations.

This means your boss is likely in a position to have a conversation on commercial aspects of social media. You just need to develop an online strategy that fits the organization’s business objectives. Your boss might just be looking for someone to take the lead. A survey conducted by IQPC in 2010 showed that 80% of corporate executives consider Social Media as an important aspect of the online communication strategies.

Customer Feedback Online

Every year companies spend millions on customer service surveys. This helps the executives to get an insight on what is their customer thinking.

When you go online try searching “your company name + bad experience”, you would be surprised at the results. Unfortunately, this freely available data online is overlooked by companies. ICICI bank is known to monitor 3-5k tweets per day via its Twitter handler @icici_care. The bank also monitors online conversations on Facebook, Blogs and other social mediums, to help stop rumors.

Listening to your customers creates strong relationships and helps you develop the right products. This would eventually lead to monetization.

Instant Response

Social Media not only gives you customer feedback online, but gives you the opportunity to respond back to your customer online. Many companies in Qatar like Qtel, Virgin Mobile give instant response to customer queries on a social network like Twitter. Customers are keen to interact with their brands online. A study conducted on MENA Twitter habits by Spot-On PR in Feb 2010 gave the following results: -

- 50% of the surveyed had purchased a product or service as a result of Twitter

- 88% of Twitter users recommend products / services

- 65% of respondents were interested in receiving special offers & coupons from brands on Twitter

Here is an opportunity for many for you to sell these stats to your boss which would help you build a case to monetize the investment in online media.

One step at a time

If your boss is partially convinced and asks you to give him a lead, start with maintaining an online blog. It is not that difficult to move some corporate offline content online. Recommend a person who has the passion for writing and can update the blog on a regular basis.

A few more reasons: -

Using SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and Social Media - Get your website among the top 10 searched items on Google, which leads to more traffic and visibility of your brand.

Reputation Management – Customers are discussing about your brand online, whether you like to listen or not.

Customer Service – Twitter, Facebook and various other social networks are becoming prime source of direct interaction with customers.

According to the Internetworldstats.com the Middle East has 63 million Internet users. So, if just 50% of those are affected by brand recommendations online, that’s 32 .5 million people are reachable through online mode of communication. Internet is here to stay and grow big; however, it’s your choice to ride the wave or stay onshore to make a difference.

The Doha Twitter Story

The below article was published in Gulf Times on 09 June 2010, my initial interaction days with the people in Doha to speak about twitter. Click on the below image to read the article.

Qatar 2022 - Twitter Times

FIFA awarded Qatar the 2022 world cup to Qatar today evening. Qatar brings the World Cup to the smallest host ever but one which has unparalleled financial power to stage the world's biggest single-sport event. It overcame the reservations of many people about holding the games in desert heat. 

Qatar will stage a World Cup in and around Doha in a desert summer but promises state-of-the-art technology to cool fans and players alike. It beat the United States in the final round of voting 14-8.

The community tried to bring the #Qatar2022 amongst the top 10 trending topics on twitter, however, twitosphere had different plans. Varied versions of Qatar like Quatar and Katar came out as a trending topics on twitter. 

Check out collection of some interesting tweets posted before and after the announcement: - 

@dohanews 'Russia's really cold, so maybe they'll be ok that Qatar is really hot' overheard watching #qatar2022 bid

@AlmahaAli When Americans ask me "what's Qatar" I will go like "u know the country who beat u 2 the bid 2022

@rachelannmorris To all those (mainly in dubai) who told me I was nuts moving to #doha all those years ago...don't make me say "I told you so"

@AlexKunawicz The speed camera in Doha that fines you £800 is going to be working overtime for next 12 years. Wonder what fine will be by #Qatar2022 ?

@ya3gooby We learn from #Qatar2022: 1)Importance of clear Long-term vision, 2) Work Hard and You'll achieve, 3) Top-Level Support is vital for success

@sghazzi 21 degrees in doha but tonight doha is on fire #qatar2022

@Alkhulaiwi Thank you Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad Al-Thani. You are a true hero for the younger generation. #Qatar2022

@Xische The bid website has to be contractually taken down 60 secs after announcement. Its down already! http://www.qatar2022bid.com #Qatar2022

@eskaff if Beers not allowed go for #redbull #Qatar2022

@hussdajani am seriously out of words! I don't think it has kickd n yet!:) this has HUGE positive changing effect4this region

@leiandroid It makes me smile knowing that a country people can't even locate won against... well, the US. Maybe it'll motivate people to grab an atlas.

@Mohsinaltaf i need your support for 2028 for pakistan :) . ok?

Dohatweets.blogspot.com

Friends..

Check out a new blog roll on Doha. The blog will display tweets about any one and every one that mentions Doha or Qatar in their Tweets.

dohatweets.blogspot.com

Facebook Penetration Rate in Middle East

UAE has the highest Facebook penetration rate followed by Qatar in the Middle East as per the data released by Facebakers. Saudi Arabia has the highest number of Facebook users but the penetration rate is very low.

The users in Qatar are growing rapidly and overall in the Middle East. Users in UAE have grown by 11 % and Qatar by 8% in the last 6 months. This illustrates the Social Media boom in the region.

Iraq also has a decent penetration rate considering its conditions, and this show the willingness of people to communicate with each other.

Male population dominate Facebook in the Middle East with a total of 4.3 million users and Females amount 2.5 million, almost half of the male users.

Interestingly, Iceland has the highest Facebook penetration in the world :)

Qtel vs Vodafone Qatar

Check out the screen shot below, showing online ads from Qtel (Qatar Telecom) and Vodafone Qatar on the same page. Looks like the boys are fighting hard to grab/retain their market share. This is what you call Aggressive Online Marketing.