Twitter is proving to be a vexing customer service tool for big banks, says a new report from Javelin Strategy & Research on banks’ use of social media.
Customers seem to like the speed and directness of sending a question or complaint to their bank by Twitter, the report found. But banks must weigh the implications of responding quickly with the need to protect a customer’s personal and financial information, like bank account numbers. As a result, they’re “struggling” with how to best use the service, Javelin found.
Javelin examined nearly 5,500 Twitter messages sent by three big banks — Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup — in response to messages received during a crucial period late last year. (Chase, one of the top four banks, has a Twitter handle but isn’t actively using the service at this point, the report says.) Javelin analyzed the final message sent by the bank to the customer to determine if the issue had been resolved, or if the customer had been directed to another communications channel like a call center.
The period spanned the seven weeks from Sept. 20 to Nov. 10, a time of intense customer frustration with large banks. It encompassed media coverage of the Occupy Wall Street movement; outrage over Bank of America’s proposed $5 monthly debit card fee; and Bank Transfer day on Nov. 5. Twitter volume to the banks tripled during the period, Javelin found. (Tweets are typically public and searchable online, unless they are “direct messages” sent to an individual.)
The analysis found that over all, the banks did not do a great job of resolving complaints via Twitter during the study period. Citigroup appeared to do the best, resolving 36 percent of its Twitter-based complaints; Wells Fargo, 11 percent; and Bank of America, 3 percent. (That doesn’t necessarily mean the complaints weren’t ultimately addressed elsewhere, but they were not resolved via Twitter — the
customer’s chosen means of communication.)
In a “vast majority” of cases, the report found, Bank of America and Wells Fargo responded with “repetitive, scripted” answers that, in effect, put the burden on the customer to take further action, leaving a “trail of evidence that Twitter would be a fruitless extra step, not a time saver.”
The report also found that customers tended to send inquiries and complaints to Twitter “handles,” or addresses, that they considered intuitive — like, @BankofAmerica, @Citi or @WellsFargo — rather than the handles that the banks have established specifically for customer service inquiries. That meant that in most cases, inquiries sent to imprecise handles never got answered. (Only WellsFargo responded to any misdirected messages, the report said.)
The report also looked at 300 full Twitter conversations on Nov. 28, or Cyber Monday, a busy day for online shopping, and found that it was “atypical” for the banks to answer questions on Twitter.
“At Citi we strive to provide excellent customer service through every outlet available to us, including social media and Twitter,” Andrew Brent, a bank spokesman, said in an e-mail. “We look forward to reviewing the report in detail.”
“We use Twitter to engage customers, listen to our customers and help them get to the right place for the answers they need,” said Kimarie Matthews, a vice president in Wells Fargo’s Internet Services Group. “Sometimes this means connecting a customer with someone from Wells Fargo who is not on Twitter to help. And, in some instances, to protect the privacy of the customer an issue is taken offline.”
“Our Twitter team is dedicated to identifying and resolving customer’s individual issues,” Bank of America spokeswoman Tara Burke said in an email. “After initial contact we take the issue off-line to protect the privacy of the customer. We never disclose or ask our customers to disclose any confidential information during our interactions using Twitter.”
When possible, banks should answer questions directly on Twitter, the Javelin report advises. But bank representatives must educate customers that they will need to switch to a private, direct message, or perhaps to another mode of communication, like phoning a call center, if account information or other details are needed to address the issue — or, if the problem requires more than Twitter’s 140-character limit.
Banks, however, should make “reasonable efforts” to avoid forcing the customer to explain the problem over again. “Twitter,” the report says, “should be seen as a time saver, not an extra step in a conventional service channel.”
Have you used Twitter to communicate with your bank? What was your experience?
ANN CARRNS
NY Times Technology
