You won't believe how StanChart, DBS, RCBC, and CIMB use social media differently

Find out why Standard Chartered is compelled to review how its various internal teams work together.

ABF: What is the impact of new generation channels like social media to the client’s preference and expectations of the bank? What are your thoughts on using social media not for making revenue, but for connecting with customers?

Standard Chartered: Marged Lloyd, Head of Online Communications
We take a proactive approach to engaging with our customers and the public through social media. It’s inevitable that people will talk about us online so we have made a conscious decision to participate in these conversations in a meaningful way.

On the one hand, this may simply involve responding to customers when they approach us through our social channels such as Facebook and Twitter; on the other hand, it entails using social media to reach out and speak to people about the topics that are important to them, for example our sponsorship of Liverpool FC or our sustainability activities.

In some of our markets, we are also taking a more local approach to ensure that the conversations we are having really are relevant to our audiences. For example in Singapore, Hong Kong and the UAE, amongst others, we are building strong follower bases on Facebook and/or Twitter.

The main impact of using social media – and one of the unforeseen benefits – is that we’ve been compelled to review how our various internal teams work together. As a consumer, when you speak to your bank through social media, you don’t care whether you’re speaking to customer service, human resources, marketing or communications. As far as you’re concerned, you’re simply talking to your bank. You expect them to give you the right answer quickly.

While this can be challenging, we take a unified approach to ensure the best experience for our stakeholders. We have made good progress in this respect and are seeing increased integration and teamwork between relevant departments across the globe, as a result of our social media activities. I would imagine that any bank using social media, big or small, recognises the need to break down internal silos in this way.”

DBS Bank: Jeremy Soo, Managing Director and Head, Consumer Banking Group (Singapore)
Customers do not want to be marketed to on social media platforms. Instead we set out to share our Asian insights on social media to add more value to our customers and to deepen relationship with them.

RCBC: Ismael Sandig, Senior Executive Vice President - Retail Banking Group
There is a school of thought that while social media can help increase awareness, it may also be prone to negative comments. The bank must be ready to invest on such because every opportunity in social media may equate to cost in such a way that the bank must have enough infrastructure in place to support these channels.

CIMB Bank: Renzo Viegas, Group Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Head of Consumer Banking
Social media is essentially a channel of engagement. The benefit of this new engagement channel is the virality factor and how messages can be spread easily through word of mouth and people wanting to share messages with their friends.

The challenge behind this form of engagement is essentially the ability to add value to our customers. Users of social media want to connect with us only if we are able to bring value to their lives.

This value can be in the form of providing useful content, answering queries, giving them a chance to participate in a contest or building a community of like-minded people to connect with. We can understand more about what our customers want and what we can do for them only by engaging with our community of customers.

From the customers’ perspective, there is a lot to be said about a bank that genuinely wants to add value to its customers. We are a bank that strives to listen, answer to customers’ queries and feed their comments back for our own improvement. It also demonstrates that we are willing to be where our customers are and use new mediums and channels to reach out to our customers.