CommunityLend blog

Confidence in financial institutions has been shaken, and the rules for regaining confidence are not clear.  Part of the reason that the road ahead is unclear, is because the rules have changed.  Its not uncommon for people to suggest that banks don’t ‘get it’, however in fairness to all concerned the new rules are not always clear.

One side outcome from the financial headlines has been to isolate some clear rules that anyone can follow, including Banks.  These posts deal with some of the issues for banks, and any company to consider.  Incidentally, this is the heart of step 1 of  Web 2.0 for banks.

5 Steps: How Banks Must Regain Trust (hint: Not Via Advertising)

But some serious trust has been lost. Managing our own personal finance is one of those things that the average American feels less and less confident about. Most of us have no choice but to surrender our trust to financial experts and institutions.

And this from my own contribution over at thebankwatch.com.

“Stop reinforcing the idea that bank leadership is out of touch with reality by delivering your same “plan for retirement” ads”

The main page is running their (AIG) latest ad here, and it speaks about ‘what we see’, has photo’s of football players, and is generally a typical wealth management type ad.  … If I had an AIG policy, what are you doing for me – is my policy still working?  Simple basic comments addressing what people are actually thinking.  This is what people expect and what social media mean.  Talk to people and listen to people.

In the ’5 steps post’ John speaks about 5 rules, and here are three of them with a similar theme.

- Stop your traditional advertising with your old campaign now
- Whoever said corporate blogging is dead is an idiot – start a blog for godsakes
- Listen and react to your customers publicly

The theme here is simple.  Get personal with your customers, and get real with your customers.  Ask yourself and ask your friends. 

Does the sight of football players jumping around or other typical corporate branding exercises engender trust in a time of confidence crisis?  If a friend is having a crisis in their life is the first thing that you would do to suggest a new paint job or to buy a new car?  Not likely.

In a time of confidence crisis, the first thing to do is to match the communication method and media to the times.  In times of a confidence crisis, people don’t want to be spoken at , they want to have a conversation, to ask questions and to get answers.  In fact, as you follow this theme along you will see that this is not just in a time of a confidence crisis.  This is something to expressly do at all times – because at any given time someone is having a financial confidence crisis and needs re-assurance.   This football player ads don’t help those people at that moment.  They want … a conversation.

Something to try Mr financial services executive:

Adopt the persona of a customer – read a few headlines in the business section …. close your eyes … now go to your web site – how does it feel?

Canadians continue to be leaders in all things internet, and are #1 in online banking usage in the world. Canadians are also first in frequency, averaging 10.5 visits in the month of April 2008. RBC is the most popular site, with TD running a close second.

The usage patterns of Canadians in their 40′s and 50′s is particularly interesting. Click through for the whole story. Finextra is an excellent site for anyone interested in the latest news in financial services.

Finextra: Canadians top for online banking

Canadians lead the way when it comes to Internet banking adoption, with over two thirds of the country’s Web users – around 15.5 million people – managing their finances online, according to figures from Web metrics firm comScore.

Of 37 countries studied, Canada came top on Internet banking adoption in April 2008, way ahead of the UK, with 49.5% of Internet users, the US on 44.4% and Australia with 41.7%.
…

Penetration among Canadians aged 45 to 54 is nearly as high as 25 to 44 year olds – 73% – but they are also the heaviest users, visiting banking sites 12 times a month and viewing 157 pages. ComScore suggests this may be because this age group confronts more financial challenges than others, including retirement planning and paying for their kids’ university education.