Don't Blame me, I'm not NatWest ... says Nat West!
Couldn't help but laugh as I read Tuesdays (June 26th) Metro on the way to a meeting with a client, about ironically, implementing their new social media strategy. This article neatly summed up the good and the potential bad when using social media to vent fustrations.
Irate customers went online to start searching for NatWest Bank's twitter account on Monday 25th June 2012 to vent their anger as the bank's IT problems entered into its second week and customers were still reeling in its wake.
Some time before, when creating her account, Natalie Westerman probably felt that @NatWest was a great username as it was obviously short for her name, used less characters so she could get more out of her 140 character tweets and increased her chances of being ReTweeted in the process.
Unfortunately for Natalie, the first thing that many disgruntled NatWest bank customers found was her twitter address - she was called a 'dunce' and found herself answering many tweets asto why she hadn't got control of the computer meltdown yet!
Luckily for her and NatWest Bank, Natalie saw the funny side and pointed people to the right username to air their frustration and comments!!
What can be learnt from this?
Surely a major lender like NatWest Bank should have looked into their social media strategy and online branding more carefully. They should have noted that @NatWest already existed and set up a 'search filter' for such an eventuality. Then NatWest could have contacted any disgruntled customers directly. This would have gone a long way to saving face with their customers.
It also shows how important having a handle on social media is becoming when something like this can spread so quickly. How fast you reply is becoming king!!
Maybe NatWest should have taken a good look at the engagementindex.co.uk where they can measure their company's customer service performance on twitter.
More customers are turning to social media to engage with businesses and their brands, and also to complain about them. The engagementindex would have given NatWest a clear picture of how well they're doing to manage the fall-out.
Maybe another question to ask is: did Natalie (@NatWest) increase her followers over the past 2 weeks!!!!?
Article based on: Aiden Radnedge Metro
Tuesday 26th June 2012 (Thanks for the inspiration!) ...