Retail banks need to extend their customer service to every important channel, including social media. This paper describes a model through which banks can plan their social care strategy from concept to launch and elevate their customer engagement to new levels.
1. Social Customer Care for Retail Banking
cognizant 20-20 insights | september 2013
Executive Summary
Social media is fast becoming a significant game
changer that is shaping the future of retail banking
customer care.
Customers, especially the younger demographic, are
more comfortablethaneverbeforeininteractingand
seekinghelpfrombanksoversocialchannels. However,
the success of your social customer care will depend
on a wide variety of factors such as scope definition,
governance, organization setup, KPI definitions, etc.
This paper makes the case for establishing social
customer care in retail banking and elaborates on
the required critical success factors.
Social Media Adoption Patterns
There is no doubt that social media has expanded
the traditional boundaries of customer service.
Consider the following trends:
⢠Nearly one in three social care users use social
media for customer service on a weekly basis.1
⢠Consumers that have positive social care
experience are nearly three times more likely
to recommend a brand to others.2
⢠Consumers expect a rapid social care response â
many within 30 minutes.3
⢠Shifting customers to social media channels is more
cost-effective and produces higher satisfaction
than traditional models â 35% of companies
experienced a 10% reduction in support costs
from implementing social care.4
The New-Age Contact Center for Retail
Banking
Contact centers have already experienced a sea
change over the years. While retail banks have
prioritized lowering cost-to-serve by integrating
end-to-end customer service processes, they have
also focused on improving customer retention
through convenient, consistent, personalized
service.
Now they are witnessing an evolutionary shift
whereby the contact centers are more efficiently
integrating social media to build loyalty and
enhance the customer experience.
For decades, retail banks have encouraged
customers to use contact centers to resolve
any banking issue, because in-person customer
interaction was getting increasingly expensive.
However, in the wake of the social media revolution,
customers are now less willing to make use of
contact centers because of the hours of waiting and
⢠Cognizant 20-20 Insights
Retail banks need to extend their customer service to every important
channel, including social media. This paper describes a model through
which banks can plan their social care strategy from concept to launch and
elevate their customer engagement to new levels.
2. automated responses. They are making their voices
- and displeasure - heard via social media channels.
The voice of customers today has an unprecedented
reach. There are now more than 500 million Twitter
users and more than one billion Facebook users.
Thus, banks have no choice but to incorporate social
media into their customer service strategy, so they
can connect with consumers, increase the level of
understanding and strengthen relationships.
Social Customer Service Model (SCSM)
People want a high level of engagement from the
companies with which they do business. Even the
best of what formerly passed for good customer
service is no longer enough. You have to be a
veritable âcustomer concierge,â doing everything
you can to make every one of your customers feel
acknowledged, appreciated and heard. The fact is that
21% of the time customers ask for their customer
service representativeâs name5
which clearly indicates
the customerâs preference for personalized service.
In retail banking customer service, whenever
the customer connects with a contact center
a very high level of service is expected every
time. Accessing bank accounts anywhere
anytime, phone banking, ATMs, etc. are no
longer considered innovations. While banks
have introduced high levels of automation, with
everything ranging from IVR to self-service
platforms, it appears that personalized customer
service is emerging as the true goal.6
Considering the above, we have come up with an
interpersonal social interaction model (Figure 1)
that builds on personalization â hence, greater
social value and loyalty.
When and How of Social Customer Care
Enabling social customer care should be a
well-planned journey with some thought given to
defining the following key activities:
Plan: This is a key step where you devise the
social customer care strategy and define the
scope to align it with the organizationâs social and
customer service strategies and goals. In addition,
you will also define the organizational structure,
social media guidelines (including compliance
to regulatory requirements) and SLAs for social
customer care
Listen: An important step in setting up social
customer care is to define the companyâs listening
strategy. A social media strategic listening
program needs to be designed to cover all the key
channels where there is active discussion about
your companyâs brands/products.
Participate: It is important to answer questions
around who manages the social queries. A social
command center is a great means to listen and
participate over social channels. Organizations
can choose to have either dedicated agents
who will service only over the social channel or
blended agents who have access to and service
for customers across media types. For example, a
blended agent can answer incoming phone calls,
answer support emails and also do chats.
Evaluate and respond: An agent would analyze
and evaluate all types of incoming queries and,
if they cannot respond themselves, route them
to relevant departments. Thereafter a two-way
conversation can be initiated resulting in a higher
engagement. It is important to ensure that the IT
organization is fully involved in the companyâs
social media monitoring and participation
practices.
Figure 2 depicts the stages in social customer
care and the activities within each stage.
Setting up social customer care could be a challenge
for organizations. In Figure 4, we present a framework
for managing the social customer care setup.
Enabling Social Customer Service
How is ânew ageâ customer service better than
traditional customer service? What are the different
social media techniques that enable new age service?
cognizant 20-20 insights 2
Figure 1
Social Value
Satisfaction
with Contact
Center
Interpersonal
Social Quality
Loyalty to
Retail Bank
Social Customer Service Model
3. cognizant 20-20 insights 3
To answer these questions and more, we have classified
the new type of services and their enablers into five
broad groups (see Figure 3).
Social Media Command Center
The social media command center is a dedicated area
where a companyâs social media team can monitor and
engage social conversation around their brand and
market.7
The command center helps create order out
of chaos. People at the command center can gauge
the social health of their brand in a single glance.
Steps to setting up the command center:
⢠Define business goals and social strategy.
⢠Establish a listening model.
⢠Create a routing model.
⢠Create a resolution model.
⢠Establish social media policies and guidelines.
⢠Create a system for social media crisis
management.
⢠Offer training.
Plan Listen EvaluateParticipate Respond
Process
and Scope
Definition
Team
Setup
Other
online
content
Web
forums
Social
Media
Channels
World
Wide
Web
Post
updates
and
engaging
content
Join and
Follow
Create
Social
Pages and
groups
Create
Social
Profiles
Attitude /
Opinion
Market
Intelligence
Respond to
Brand
Advocates
Respond
to
Prospects
Customer
Service
Request
/Product
Service
enquiry
âHow toâ
related
General
Enquiries
Account
Related
Share the
appropriate
Blog link
Provide
YouTube
video link
related to
query
Respond
to
Prospects
Ask
customer
to share
contact
number
When and How of Social Customer Care
Figure 2
Proactive Visual Collaborative Personalized Anticipatory
ENABLERS
Proactive Listening âHow-toâ
Videos
Consumer-to-
Consumer
(C-to-C) Help
Mobile/Facebook
Apps
Crowdsourcing
Customer Feedback
Listen out for mentions of
your brand or business.
Get creative to leverage
the power of proactive
listening.
E.g.: Search for customers
visiting a town/city send
them a welcome tweet,
with the locations of ATMs
or branches.
Create a
repository of
how-to videos
on step-by-step
process.
Use video
agents using
Google
Hangout.
Create forums of
your customers.
Enable and
encourage them to
help each other.
Use mobile apps
preconfigured with
dedicated hashtags for
automation.
So whenever a
customer raises a
request using that app,
an automated response
would be received by
the customer without
any hassle.
Anticipate issues by listening
to the customerâs feedback.
Enable CSRs to be better
equipped with the trending
issues.
E.g.: Barclaycard Ring
MasterCard, the first
social credit card to be
designed and built through
the power of community
crowdsourcing.
New Age Customer Service
Figure 3
4. Agents
While a social media command center will typically
include clusters of social-only agents or âstand-alone
agents,â it can also include âblended agentsâ who
can reach out to customers across channels.
Governance
The governance body works on predefined SLAs
and KPIs such as the following:
⢠Bring social media policies and practices into
compliance with regulations regarding product
marketing, new account opening and all credit
decisions.
⢠Coordinate the bankâs social presence with
supporting materials on traditional Web platforms.
⢠Monitor the bankâs presence on the social Web.
⢠Ensure that the IT organization is fully involved
in the bankâs social media monitoring and
participation practices.
The governance and compliance team also has to
follow the relevant regulatory bodies for financial
institutions, i.e., CUNA and FINRA. Figure 5 offers a
snapshot of CUNA and FINRA guidelines for the use
of social media.
cognizant 20-20 insights 4
Figure 4
Typical Social Customer Care Setup
Other
online
content
Web
forums
Social
Media
Market
Intelligence
Attitude,
Opinions
Customer Service
Sales/Marketing
Public Relations
Reputation
Management
Reputation/Loyalty
Response
to
Prospects
Response
to
Advocates
Social Media Command Center
Listen Monitor Route/Respond
Agents
Blended
Multi channels
Stand Alone
Social Only
Governance(Compliance, Legal)
Transforming Traditional Contact Centers
for Social Customer Care
Customers today are increasingly comfortable getting
served via social media customer service.
Letâs consider how we can reduce the number of
inbound calls to a retail bank contact center using
social media within a typical banking context.
Inbound calls for a retail bank broadly fall into the
following categories:
⢠Account details modification.
⢠Account transaction.
⢠ATM/debit card.
⢠Credit card.
⢠Check.
⢠Fixed/recurring deposit.
⢠Internet/mobile banking
⢠Statement.
⢠Request status.
⢠New service activation.
⢠Complaints.
These customer query/complaint types can be
further grouped into four overarching categories:
5. â˘Maintain records
(For business communications made via social media, even if
only distributed internally, records must be kept.)
â˘Supervise
( Before approving a social media site for use by your
registered representatives, be sure that your representatives
fully understand and will comply with the applicable rules
regarding such communications.)
â˘Careful When Posting3rd Party Links
(You have to trust that your registered representatives can use
their own judgment when determining if a 3rd party link is OK
to post.)
â˘Spot Check Your Data Feeds
â˘Understand that âSuitabilityâ Applies
Social Media Regulations - Snapshot
⢠Risk Management Program
(To identify, measure, monitor, and control the risks relatedto social
media.)
⢠Reputation Management
(Preparedness to address the potential for negative comments or
complaints that may arise within all the social media platforms)
⢠Oversight Process
(For monitoring, information should be posted to proprietary social
media sites administered by the banks.)
⢠Employee Training for Social Media Usage
(Policies and procedures for oďŹcial, work-related use of social media,
and potentially for other uses of social media, including deďŹning
impermissible activities.)
⢠Disclosure of Privacy Policies as per GLBA
⢠FCRA restrictions requirements when using Social Media
Social Media Guidelines- Snapshot
Governance Team Adheringto Regulatory Guidelines
⢠Confidential or account-related questions:
Transactions/queries that need some confidential
information like the account number, ATM/credit
card number, FD number, etc. that customers might
not be comfortable sharing on an open forum.
⢠General enquiries or feedback that is non-account-
related: Enquiries on new service action, product/
service details, ATM location search, benefits of
new account opening with bank, etc.
⢠âHow toâ questions: Change login and profile
password, get account summary/statements,
modify demand draft and tax transaction limit,
make third-party transfer, add/view billers, view
online bill payments, request a new account/
checkbook, manage favorites, raise a ticket in
customer care, etc.
⢠Product/service enquiries and other general
knowledge: Along with all other information
enquiries, customer complaints would be the
most important segment here.
Based on business priorities, query types should
be put into a matrix form that indicates what
types of queries can be better handled through
social customer care rather than traditional
contact centers. Figure 6 offers a generic
classification of query types that can be handled
via social customer care.
cognizant 20-20 insights 5
Query type Contact Center Social Customer Care Social Customer
Care Medium
Confidential or Account-
Related Questions
â â Twitter (direct message)
General Non-account-
Related Enquiries or
Feedback
x â Twitter/Facebook/Blogs/
Forums
âHow toâ Related Questions x â YouTube/Facebook/Twitter
Product/Service Enquiries
and General Knowledge
x â Blogs/Twitter
Figure 6
Preferred Social Media Channels by Query Type
Regulatory Guidelines for Social Media
Figure 5
6. Listen
Participate
Evaluate
Plan Respond
⢠Set up a dedicated Twitter handle.
⢠Research on possible # tags to
monitor.
⢠Promote the twitter handle on
bank website.
⢠Track the tweets based on
the handle and # tags
⢠Encourage customers to post
questions
⢠Start participating in the
conversation over social
channels
⢠Evaluate the
mentions/interactions and
classify them accordingly into
service request, opinion,
market intelligence etc.
⢠Route the conversations to the
respective teams
⢠Concerned departments respond
to the customers with resolution
or with alternate steps
⢠Direct message feature#(DM) can
be used by banks to respond
personally and to maintain
confidentiality
⢠Set up a Facebook page for
customer service.
⢠Create apps like one-on-one
personalized chat; book your
appointment with bank officer,
⢠Monitor the Facebook
posts on the page
⢠Concerned departments respond
to the customers with resolution
or with alternate steps
⢠This channel is good for general
on-account-related and
nonconfidential enquiries
⢠Start a bankâs customer service
dedicated blog
⢠Encourage customers to share
their views on products and
services over the blog
⢠Listen to blog posts across
the Web
⢠Use the social user interface to log
in to Set up blog
⢠This is a good medium to spread
awareness and educate customers
⢠Setup a YouTube channel
⢠Create and upload all the âhow
toâ related videos
⢠Encourage customers to search
the solutions over YouTube
⢠Track the Youtube videos
that customers are
viewing
⢠Proactively reach out to customers
based on their browsing history
⢠Respond to usersâ comments on
the videos
⢠Set up a listening program by
incorporating a social media
⢠Track the bank-related
keywords and understand
what has been said over
the Web
⢠Proactive servicing
⢠Sentiment analysis
Figure 7
Challenges /Risks of Using Social Media
in Customer Care
Risks: Banks engaging in social media must
confront challenging fundamental issues, such as
how to balance responsiveness and regulatory
compliance, how to handle private conversations
in public places and how to effectively direct
customers to information. Social media creates
unique risks for banks, including the following:
⢠Compliance risk.
⢠Fraud risk.
⢠Negative online reputation.
Technology selection: Selecting the right
technology for social customer care requires care
and due diligence. The technology landscape must
gel with the organizationâs IT ecosystem.
Reputation management: In todayâs
hypercompetitive world, most of the top banks â
e.g., Bank of America and Wells Fargo - have become
present on Twitter (and other social channels) with
the help of a dedicated social customer service
team. In this arena, banksâ reputations are directly
proportional to their response-rate effectiveness.
A bank needs to have an expert reputation
management team in place, to constantly monitor,
evaluate and manage the organizationâs reputation.
Ownership: Customers usually end up talking
to several department reps while using multiple
channels of communications like e-mail, phone
call, Tweeting, etc. This can lead to customer
dissatisfaction and a very high probability of
customers switching banks. To resolve this
challenge, we recommend establishing a social
command center. Commonwealth Bank Australia
has created a social command center-based
mobile app by which a customer can either talk or
Twitter chat with the same individual with whom
he/she spoke earlier.
Sample Social Customer Care Landscape
cognizant 20-20 insights 6
Figure 7 provides a high level representation
of the key processes, tools and actions to be
performed while implementing social customer
care.
7. Best Practices to Maximize Benefits of
Social Customer Care
⢠Launch a quality assurance process: The
quality assurance team should be scoring each
engagement. The items outlined in Figure 8
need to be analyzed when reviewing each post
and agent response.
⢠Track, report and measure success: Figure 9
provides a list of some of the social customer
care KPIs for a social customer care setup.
Based on individual scenarios the KPI list can
be modified or augmented.
Figure 8
cognizant 20-20 insights 7
Greeting
⢠Be transparent and introduce as the
official customer service team for
the Bank, And jump into and address
issue based on the forum and tone
of the customer
Body
⢠Offer an apology to customer for
inconvenience and sincerely display
empathy that was recognized by
the customer and update CRM
Closing
⢠Resolve the issue and close
Guidelines for Social Channel Interaction
Social Customer Care KPIs
KPI Definition Calculation Tangible/Intangible
Amplification How likely an
individual is to
re-tweet or repost.
Quantitative score from
Twitter and similar
services on social
networks.
Tangible
Response Rate Response rate
-- by team and
advocate.
% of number of
responses/number of
posts.
Tangible
Service Level The % of incoming
posts that an
agent answers in a
predefined amount
of time.
SL = (ÎŁ posts responded
within threshold time) /
(ÎŁ posts answered)* 100
Tangible
Abandon Rate The % of posts
never responded
to or looked at
by the social
team during a
predefined interval
of time.
AR = (ÎŁ posts not
responded to / Relevant
Volume)* 100
Tangible
First Post (Tweet)
Resolution
The % of posts
resolved in a social
media channel on
first response.
FPR = Calculated via a
customer survey.
Tangible
Quality of
Response
Measure of the
quality of an
agentâs written
communication.
QoR = Calculated via
quality assurance and
customer survey.
Intangible
8. Figure 9
Benefits
The important benefits of social customer care include:
⢠Lowered costs of customer service.
⢠Increased customer connection and the
potential for brand advocacy.
⢠Quickened response to customers, leading to
enhanced customer experience.
⢠Increased customer loyalty.
Target Market
Retail banking customers across the U.S., Europe
and APAC that are looking to leverage the power
of social media to service their customers and to
fulfill their customer care priorities.
Audience
Retail banking CIOs, social media managers, customer
care owners, I/T managers, chief social media officers.
Summary
While it is imperative to adopt social customer care
in retail banking, it needs to be implemented and
deployed strategically. A slew of factors can affect
and define the social customer care roadmap. Our
social customer care assessment helps the customer
realize their strategy from concept to launch. Our
assessment can help the retail bank arrive at the
right balance of social customer care vis-Ă -vis the
other customer service channels.
Enterprises have much to learn about using social
media effectively. Here are a few recommendations
that are becoming industry best practices:
⢠All customer-facing and policy-setting groups
should work together to build an inbound and
outbound social media strategy.
⢠Establish a formal program for handling social
media interactions, and staff it appropriately.
⢠Identify and measure a bankâs responsiveness
to social media interactions, to ensure the
maximum satisfaction level of customers,
prospects and the public.
⢠Train the team that handles social media
interactions.
⢠Evaluate the impact of social media on a bankâs
contact center so that necessary changes can
be accommodated while increasing the use of
these channels.
⢠Adhere to banking and financial compliance
and regulations.
Banks need to develop a true social servicing
strategy in which all department roles and
responsibilities are clearly defined.
cognizant 20-20 insights 8
Redirect Rate The % of
responses that
redirect customers
to a private
conversation such
as chat or voice.
RDR = Should be
calculated automatically
via social customer care
technology platform
metrics; if not, then
calculated by comparing
the incoming channel
vs. outgoing channel for
all the posts during an
interval.
Tangible
Customer Loyalty The success rate
of retaining the
existing customers.
This can be calculated
based on repeat buying
behavior of existing
customers.
Intangible
Positive Sentiment/
Complaint Count
The % of positive
comments and
complaints out of
total mentions.
This can be calculated
using a social media
monitoring tool like
Radian6.
Tangible
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About Cognizant
Cognizant (NASDAQ: CTSH) is a leading provider of information technology, consulting, and business process
outsourcing services, dedicated to helping the worldâs leading companies build stronger businesses. Headquartered in
Teaneck, New Jersey (U.S.), Cognizant combines a passion for client satisfaction, technology innovation, deep industry
and business process expertise, and a global, collaborative workforce that embodies the future of work. With over 50
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Footnotes
1 2
NM incite Social Care Survey 2012 (panel data provided by Nielsen, n-2000 U.S. social media users)
3
Oracle Global Survey, Q4 2011, n=3111
4
MGI Web 2.0 survey (2011)
5
https://www.helpscout.net/resources/75-customer-service-facts-quotes-statistics/
6
http://www.iccs-isac.org/library/2011/10/Self-Service_Kernaghan-Report-Final-Sept-2012.pdf
7
http://blogs.salesforce.com/company/2013/05/social-media-command-centers.html
About the Authors
Govind Seshadri is a Partner and Offshore Head of Cognizant Business Consultingâs Customer Solutions
Practice. He can be reached at Govind.Seshadri@cognizant.com.
Prashant Ramars is a Senior CRM Consultant with CBCâs Customer Solutions Practice. He can be reached
at Prashant.Ramars@cognizant.com.
Anil Jangra is a Social Media Analyst within CBCâs Customer Solutions Practice.He can be reached at
Anil.Jangra@cognizant.com.