Jim Bruene of netbanker notes that some banks have begun “Encouraging Customers to Post Bank Reviews on Yelp and Google.” He observed that reviews of banks are so few that even a small number of reviews generate relatively high rankings, particularly since both sites categorize reviews by individual locations, not the entity as a whole. I agree 100% with his caution:
So, it might be tempting to
strong-armencourage reviews by your employees, or employees of your vendors. Don’t do it. Not only is it the wrong thing to do, you stand a very good chance of getting caught.
I would go a step further, however, and as with any social media effort, my first question would be “Why? What is the objective?”
A. Because the reviews relate to specific locations, then encouraging reviews might be an effort by a bank to gather feedback for their own use about customer service and customer experience, but there are certainly more effective ways to do that!
B. Reviews are generally intended to provide guidance to other consumers considering a similar choice, such as where to go for dinner. Are these banks trying to attract new customers? Mercator’s research about where people choose to bank suggests that branch location (while important) ranks fourth as a choice factor, behind account fees, soundness of the bank, and interest rates. Will a positive review by an unknown person (possibly even planted by the bank itself) outweigh those attributes? I sincerely doubt it.
C. Amplify Credit Union’s Web site-based invitation makes even less sense to me; if a customer is online, to which branch will they choose to assign their review, and what validity does that information have?
My advice to banks considering the wisdom of seeking reviews on Google or Yelp: don’t waste your energy or the goodwill of your customers. Do keep any eye on those sites in a defensive mode, in case some very unhappy customer is venting, but consider other social media initiatives based on a clearly-defined purpose.
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