Havn’t been posting here for long time …some cool stuff happening around on wordpress . This P2 theme is neat … love blog, love twitter ..you gonna love P2 too

When my PC refused to hook to wifi today, used my ipod touch for first time to make a transaction. Neat and quick Mobile site of ANZ. Just for fun checked for the mobile presence of Banks I know ( Quick result of landing page when I key in the address in Ipod Browser –

ANZ – Basic Neat Mobile site, no app

Westpac – Basic neat site and app

NAB – Very Very Basic Mobile site, no app

Suncorp – WOW Mobile site – extras like Insurance, Weather, Events and Currency (shows exchange rate of INR as 0.000!!)

CBA – Same as PC website ( Not Good!!) but neat app available from app store

UBank – Same as PC, Could not even see my account details when I logged in .. Flash could not load on my touch (Not Good at all)

ING direct – Basic Neat website

ICICI Bank – Same as PC site

Anybody got better than Suncorp Mobile landing page?

Updates – Read the complete story here

How’s your experience mate?

Yesterday I randomly asked one of my friend in India about his experience with ICICI bank, and he repeated what i broadly feel about them – it’s been best so far compared to all the banks he banked with’ for customer care he said that its good however their promotional and sales calls are very irritating. Now this was an interesting comment he made about sales calls, which also made me write this post …

New Account and a New Problem…

I recently opened Non Resident External (NRE) account with ICICI bank. Its just been a month and I faced one major problem. For the past 7-10 days I have been interacting with various people from ICICI bank over phone (making international calls) or having tough time explaining issue to different customer care reps over e mails. I will not go deep into the issue, as I still feel that team is making sincere effort to help out, however am waiting to see how long will they take…

Interesting….

Yesterday my mom called me up and told me that somebody from ICICI called up, took your Australia number and they might give you a call. I was wondering if they are trying to reach me out for the issue I am facing with NRE account, I also wondered why will they call up my home in India when I have already given them my Australia contact details. This lady calls me up at around late evening Australia time, being busy with another call that time I asked her to give me a call in 10-15 mins. She did called up again after couple of hours and that was late during night at around 11 pm, am sure she was not aware of my time zone. I was like no issues… at least she might be calling to help me out…

Sir, Why are you not using your Trading account?

However to my surprise (or not so surprised now) she was asking me why am I not using my online share trading account for quiet some time now …what the hell!! Now I did informed her about the time and told her that I am not using my trading account for the reason that I am not in country … I thought of giving her my peace of my mind asking her about other issues I am facing with NRE account, but then realized no point telling her all this as she might not be aware of the fact that I hold NRE account with them too. (and that too interestingly when all accounts are opened at same branch!!!). She was simply doing her job and trying to meet her target of making calls …

Sir, read our research reports and gain more …

Then she went on telling and selling me about ICICI stock research reports and asking me to invest in market as Indian stock market is looking bullish and I should read daily morning reports and weekly calls and invest accordingly to get good returns. I did ask her if she is giving me guarantee of those returns or not (I know its not possible, was just checking how she responds and unnecessarily grilling her..) however it was very late at my end so I asked her to send me all that info on mail and I will see what to do with that. Thank God they had my valid mail id !!

ICICI, Any answers??

1. If sales rep can take so much of effort to call my India home, take my International number and give me a sales call, what’s stopping rep from After sales team to give me a call to understand the issue I am facing, rather they are just playing mail mail …
2. If sales rep can make an effort to get my number, they can also make an effort to do some more research to know that this is Australia number and what should be right time to call up … Put some effort to delight customers mate …
3. In terms of Technology, ICICI is really great in India, however Sid with trading account is still different from Sid with NRE account! I would have felt much better if customer rep should have first updated me on the status of issue I am facing with NRE account and then went on asking me about my trading account. How wonderful it would have been !!
4. And please somebody check why are you so promising on phone that reading ICICI research reports and then investing in market would give good returns … Indian market is looking bullish, this is the right time to invest… things like that ..are you going to take guarantee? I don’t think this is good example of selling ….

Finally…

I have been banking with ICICI bank for quiet some time now. Thanks to their sales force they follow you every where. Be it student account while I was in college, salary account with all my employers till date or Online stock trading account and latest entry being newly opened Non Resident External (NRE) savings account. In my relationship so far I have had my share of good and bad experiences. Overall its been a decent experience compared to all the banks I have dealt with so far in India. They are simply ahead of every other bank in terms of services and technology they provide.

However…

The kind of effort you put to sell the product and start the relationship, please also put similar effort to sustain the relationship and show similar level of enthusiasm for AFTER sales effort.

One rep went ahead to take my number from my mom to give me a sales call in Australia at 11 pm in night… am waiting to see how much time and effort will you make to resolve the problem with my NRE account…

How’s your experience with bank so far? Do share if you have some interesting story or experience.

I have been thinking of blogging about this for long time, however I will quickly jot down my thoughts

My experience with Max Bernner

I came to Oz last year, saw Max @Parramatta – long queue daily, serving chocolate or coffee in unique way .. liked the idea of chocolate bar
(i was interested to know more)
My friend (who was here for long time) mentioned one day that theres a cafe out there serving awesome straw berries dipped in chocolate will go and try … i quickly collected he mentioned about Max (interest developed further)

as a sincere Netizen i Googled about it.  Max Bernner website equally engaging and amazing on story how they started — the concept of bald man … the passion behind it ..the whole story (i havent been to shop but I discussed about it with other friends of mine in India … )

I finally went there … tried soemthing (think it was Frappe or something) didnt like it much … though liked the concept, look and feel of the shop ..big chocolate mixers, pipes and then they were also selling extended products like mugs, chocolate cards etc etc

at this stage i gave benefit of doubt to their tage line “chocolate is not just about taste”

though i didn like the taste of what i tried … i was willing to give another try to something else and did gave another try, was not a good experience in terms of taste again … they do good stuff, they create good story … I tell every friend of mine who is new to Sydney to go to that place once … and i think whosoever is in Sdyney cant miss the place … will definitely love to try it once …

What about Max Bernner and Bank

Other day – a tweet from @thebankchannel triggered this thought that is it possible to create similar story with bank branch ..can we have bank branch experience like Max, what will Bank be like if Max Bernner decided to enter Banking?? what can be extended products that you can sell in Bank branch … greeting cards? Bank Branded chocolates? …… (just thinking loud)

With branch debate still on – how can we extend this model (story and experience to banking…  a quick search on coffee shop bank landed me on this blog which mentions about Umpqua bank experiment - surf sip read shop bank (pdf) and check this Umpqua Innovation Lab (interesting stuff!!)

Think its worth a discussion … how about taking it up at  bar camp Bank anybody??

Ah! Finally I blogged after long time … loving it … thanks @thebankchannel

forrester     social media playtime is over – @jbernoff blogs on new document by @jowyang about social media marketing spend http://snipurl.com/dxx3c

Above Tweet from  Forrester grabbed my attention and it is worth reading the blog post on Groundswell Blog.  Post highlights that marketing budget for social media spending is recession proof. On blog - 

What’s driving this? As the executive summary of the report says:

These inexpensive tools can quickly get marketing messages out through interactive discussion and rapid word of mouth, and properly managed, can deliver measurable results.

My personal experience echos this – with the reduction in overall marketing and advertising budgets organizations are looking at social networking tools as “inexpensive” marketing tool. While some organizations might be able to innovate and be benefitted.  However, if your organization is here without any strategy and just dablling around then you better pay heed to the recommendations on Forrester Blog – which shouts – It’s time for serious business – SOCIAL MEDIA PLAYTIME IS OVER

You will also like to read

• 10 key lessons on social media as highlighted by Gavin
• Sean Lew’s Book Review of Groundswell 

Too much for social media and Banks… Next what is happening in Insurance sector

*Updates*

• Nice Wrap up of Ad:tech by Gavin.  I like the comprehensive presentation evaluating social media monitoring tools. 
• Laurel Papworth’s presentation on relevance of twitter in business 

On Tuesday, 10th March I visited Ad:tech Sydney (Event for Digital Marketing).  As a visitor my access was limited to the keynotes and expo, could not attend any of the panel discussions or conferences. However, good work done by official twitter moderators (Nicely consolidated by Neerav ), also available at  relevant # TAGS . Here is my summary of my experience of the event

Kodak Moment

I started day 1 with a video “winds of change, Kodak is back”  this was part of Stephen Green’s session on the  digital transformation of Kodak – It was an interesting story with confessions on how they changed  in 4 years and whatever exists at Kodak now, never existed 4 years back. Here’s the video he played -

After that i roamed around a bit at various stalls of exhibiting companies, stopped at couple of them for demo on how they are promising to solve the mysteries of social media for their clients.  Or how to build optimized websites to get more traffic and eyeballs. Seems like everybody knows SEO expect me! You come here and you would realize about the importance of having your “digital identity” and then optimizing it so that you are visible!  Everything which we love to do is also quickly happening in a parallel second or virtual world. Before I get carried away 0n virutal Vs Real let me come back to this real post in virtaul world…

Tweet Tweet

So, now I chose a place outside conference rooms and started following tweets. So, what if i could not attened the sessions, I have collected couple of relevant tweets, its worth going through them once

@servantofchaos 10 key lessons from social media

1. Don’t believe the hype
2. Use subtle branding i.e. you don’t want to appear lame
3. Social media is not free … You are putting your reputation on the line
4. Learn from other people’s mistakes
5. Be quick ..New ideas are only unique for a short time … It’s the zeitgeist baby!
6. They won’t come. You have to use social media
7. Constantly reinvent … Your social media beast develops a life of its own. Sounds like a teenager!
8. Keep path to trial simple
9. Understand how your audience uses social media
10. Be brave … Social media is not for the faint hearted

Tweets on Banking

@ Charispalmer

• @montyhamilton says a positive interaction about your brand in an online community is “advocacy we don’t have to touch” #atsyd3
• UBank did a brand recognition study and found success of impressions on facebook was a big surprise #atsyd3
• UBank measures YouTube channel page views, comments, facebook fans, twitter followers. Lense is interoperabilty with UBank site #atsyd3
• myfuturebank learnings: Monty from UBank says most important thing is to give people a feedback process and make the biz accessible #atsyd3
• UBank sees social media as an opportunity to differentiate and have conversations at arms reach says @montyhamilton #atsyd3
• UBank considers Facebook a way to target mass markets. Twitter is still early adopter phase but bank has been in it since launch #atsyd3
• “Follow their life rather than force them into your path to purchase” #atsyd3

@ Monty Hamilton

• Really enjoying this J&J session #atsyd3 #atsyd – great point “don’t create something to impress other marketers” SPOT ON!!!
• Over 1m winks sent by Acuvue @facebook app, very cool, and awesome reach figs too (correct me if wrong but) 36% of Aust popn #atsyd3 #atsyd
• “Needed to get customers to try before buy” says Mandeep as “60% who try product stay with it” (J&J Acuvue Contact Lenses) #atsyd3 #atsyd
• “Ultimately its the premium price brands that suffer” says Mandeep on why J&J could not start a price war with contact lenses #atsyd3 #atsyd
• Charis Palmer says “as UBank has a 24×7 call centre, leveraging it for Twitter servicing could be resource efficient” #atsyd #atsyd2
• Charis Palmer says “banks still think they control their brands” maybe the logo and the tagline hehe… I agree with her #atsyd #atsyd2

I would also like to thank Monty for the quick catch up after the session and also introducing me to charis Palmer..

Finally

Then I had to rush back to office for work and thus i missed the drinks party after the day 1. I planned to meet couple of new found tweet friends, however thanks to office i could not even make it on second day!! However thanks to live tweets i followed the relevant bits

Okay this time I will be blogging about Social networking feature embraced by ANZ. This is quiet unique -

1. While other banks (Raboplus and Ubank covered so far) are trying out new things with Online Banks, ANZ is experimenting with the social network around “Real” Bank (and not onedirect). 

2. It is unique because they have not just embraced social media applications to broadcast and connect with people but they have actually went ahead one step and built a network around normal savings account.  For this they have partnered with a US company called SmartyPig and launched Smartypig Australia 

3. And they are using another social networking website called Get satisfaction for customer support

4. Need not mention that there exist twitter: SmartyPigAU and Blog (though with only two posts since it was launched in December) 

So what is Smartypig?

Online Piggy bank which lets you create your profile, set your saving goal in terms of how much you want to save and in what period. Based on which Bank will deduct monthly amount and put it in your piggy. Further it lets you share your profile with your community and friends on facebook or myspace. Also, you can allow your friends / family to contribute to your goals or else you can also contribute to your friends goals. Simply put it lets you build a social network around your savings account. Finally when you reach your goal you have an option of either transferring money (along with interest) to linked savings account or get them coverted to value boost gift card that you can use with specified retailers. Check more details at About us Page of smarty pig. They say that smartypiggy is converting ‘buy now pay later’ credit card mentality to a better  guilt free  financial habit of save now spend later. 

Was at Ad:Tech Sydney – watch out this space for next post about Ad:tech.

In this post, I would like to quickly and heartily acknowledge all the blogs and publications that help me out in writing these posts – And I will be adding these useful sites / blogs as links in side bar on right. Currently it consists of  Banking Review  its sister companies and blogs , they are doing really good work of bringing relevant and focused news to the industry and that too using relevant tools!! (Follow Banking Review on Twitter). There are other broad spectrum websties and publications covering technology and trends which I will keep posting about as and when I stumble upon them.

Then there are cetain industry events – One such biggest and relevant event is hoted by FST media   Last year I got an opportunity to attend FST Media’s 3^rd annual technology and innovation – the future of banking and financial services conference it was wonderful experience which I later Blogged about. FST events are unique in the sense that they are kind of biggest platform bringing together people for finacnial and Technology sector. This year in April they are again hosting 3rd Annual Technology & Innovation – the Future of Insurance and Wealth Management. Last year my company was one of the sponsors in the event. I am looking forward to attend the event this year too. See you around there!!

By the way are you following these or any others? Feel free to drop a comment to share other relevant publications / blogs / events. They complete the ecosystem

 I came across this article in Online Banking Review (OBR) which argues that Content generation will play a greater role in website development during the next 12 months as banks strive to show their commitment to customers. This further strengthens my point on the importance of connecting to customers with a blog – other than communication it helps you in generating good content.In world wide web there are n no of ways to produce content and with the concept of social networking there are numerous way to connect with the consumer -

You Tube

Similar article in OBR mentions how Ubank who is using Youtube to launch a channel UBankMoneyBox which presents complex finanical concepts in fun way, a sample video is here explains the credit crunch in fun way  -

Facebook

 Here again U bank has taken a lead and have their presence felt on facebook, sharing youtube videos, conference / event details, marketing their schemes, Awards etc. Articles on finanical management etc etc. This also helps bank in SEO and thus increasing their chances of appearing in search queries. Also worth noticing on the facebook profile the option of contacting customer care through Skype. Then there are various RSS feeds which users can browse through.  In coming days this can possibly replace the usual News / Media link on the website. 

Twitter

Need not say ubank has its presence here too, as mentioned in facebook and youtube profile too – follow ubank on twitter.  Seeing this i searched for other banks on twitter and here are the results -

CommBank - However with no logo of bank and no activity i really doubt that its twitter profile of common wealth bank 

Westpac- Though there is a logo, but this twitter profile is password protected, so cant comment anything. Private profile make sesne if this is supposed to be network of internal employees – but then that’s what we are talking of here. 

Rabobank- Again, something fishy here, with no logo and no posts,  I am sure this isn’t Rabo bank twitter feed.  

with more and more people using these tools, it would be logical step for banks to embrace these technolgoies at least for reaching out people to broadcast messages – No wonder this would help in cutting advertising spend too. 

I would end this with another interesting article on the no of hits analysis for top Direct banking websites which argues that - ‘Young Ambition’ might sound like a cheesy pop group but is actually one of the new demographic segments that could make or break your online success’ 

Clearly UBank is taking a sort of lead in playing around with these new tools and with other banks ready to jump in, it would be interesting space to watch out in 2009. 

Few more interesting experiments in next post….

This post is a sort of reply to Greg’s comment on post on RaboPlus Blog. First of all Thanks for the comment! Really appreciate the effort he is putting in to engage in conversation with consumers. Right is it that having a ghost writer would defeat the purpose. Being authentic and candid is most important. Being a virtual bank it becomes more important to have blog as a communication channel. 

Other Rabo Blogs

He mentioned that Other GM’s from Rabo direct banks are also blogging. Did a quick check about it and here are other two blogs I could find  - 

Raboplus New Zealand – Blog is called Raboplus Blog and is differs from Australia blog in the sense that it has multiple authors – Other than GM there is a team leader from bank’s customer contact center and a freelancer. They write about their opinions aon various Money related topics. 

Robodirect Ireland – Called RaboDirect Blog is again seems to be multiple author blog. They also have podcast library there with latest blog post asking readers for the suggestions on the podcasts. 

oops! I tried adding podcast to my itunes library, somehow could not do it directly through website [Add to itunes link isnt functional on the subscription page] 

Wondering?

It is good to see that Rabo has embraced Blogs as  a part of their strategy and are using this as a tool to connect to consumers. However what i am wondering is - 

1. How are they tracking the benefits of blog? or is it that they just blogging because they are passionate about it.

2. Is it part of the overall digital marketing strategy to increase the visibility in search engine – I can think NO becuase Rabo bank didnt appear for either of the following search queries  - online bank, direct bank or virtual bank. (while other banks did appear, max ads i could see of is ING direct and now UBank keeps appearing in facebook etc)

3.  Are they also using other social media tools for marketing and communication among online community?

Embracing Web2.0?

Third question is interesting as Greg pointed in his comment to watch out Rabo Plus website in coming days for more Web2.0 features which they will be incorporating. I would be looking forward to the same in coming days. However did some ground check on what other direct banks are doing in terms of using Social media to connect and market. And I was really excited to read some of the latest reports from online publications and also real example of  leading banks playing around with various options. 

More on this in next posts ….