BACKGROUND
Following the creation of their Facebook page, First Direct’s fan base has grown from August 2011 at a monthly average of 45 percent, currently peaking at 13,600. Similarly, the number of fans who actively engage with their page has grown at a monthly average of 40 percent (Facebook, 2012c). The most popular age group is the 35-44 years old range (Facebook, 2012d), which is in line with their customers’ average age of 43 years old, as identified by Garrett et al. (2007, p.16).
CURRENT POSITION
CURRENT POSITION
The ICDT Model (Angehrn. A, 1997, p.362) can be used to evaluate First Direct’s current social media strategy and plot the course for the next stage of its development.
At its most basic level, the Facebook page extends their corporate website as a platform for informing existing and potential customers about new products and services. It is particularly effective because updates are ‘pushed’ to fans’ news feeds even when they have not made the effort to search for information on their website.
However they are making a more strategic use of the platform by cultivating a vibrant community of users who interact with First Direct as well as with one another. The quality of their communication with existing and potential customers lies at the heart of their success and as Communications Manager Matthew Higgins, quoted in Garrett et al. (2007, p.7), said “we are really a communications organisation first, and a bank second”. The rapport contributes to the building of positive relationships with the users. Their sense of ownership of First Direct’s products and services, shaped by their opinions, makes users more likely to recommend the bank to others in their social network. Since 33 percent of First Direct’s customers come from personal recommendations (Garrett et al., 2007, p.6), this holds a high strategic significance.
FUTURE DIRECTION
As their customer engagement on Facebook matures, there is an impetus for First Direct to steer their activities towards the third and fourth quadrants of the ICDT Model, delivering downloadable products to customers and facilitating their financial transactions. I term this ‘social banking’.
Li and Bernoff (2011, l.1109), of Altimeter Group and Forrester Research respectively, devised the POST method for planning an effective social media strategy. It is a framework for analysing the people, objectives, strategy and technology which an organisation’s social media efforts will revolve around.
PEOPLE
The fundamental question is, are customers ready to move beyond posting updates on Facebook to engaging in commercial transactions? Anderson et al (2011, p.4) estimate that the global market for social commerce in hard goods, excluding services, will grow from US$5 billion in 2011 to US$30 billion by 2015. The key to unlocking the potential of this market will be to focus on the relational dimension of commerce rather than approaching it as a regular e-commerce channel, a point highlighted by Cecere et al (2010, p.14). This is underscored by U.S. retailers such as Gap and Gamestop who have closed their floundering Facebook storefronts (Lutz, 2012). Conversely the CEO of 8th Bridge, a social shopping software provider, countered with the examples of Ticketmaster and Delta Airlines’ integration of a social experience into their Facebook storefronts (Gerten, 2012).
It is equally important to understand how customers currently use social media in order to align the bank’s strategy with their tendencies. Forrester’s Social Technographics Profile of the age range of First Direct’s core customers (Empowered, 2012) shows 77 percent use social networking sites, ranging from maintaining a profile to regularly generating content (Li and Bernoff, 2011, l.794), with overlaps between the different groups. Paul Say, Head of E-Marketing, has further observed that “the pipeline of new customers is increasingly dominated by…digital natives” as quoted in Garrett et al. (2007, p.2). Hence a large percentage of their customers are conceivably on Facebook and there is the potential to deliver relevant social banking services to them.
OBJECTIVES
Li and Bernoff (2011, l.1118) identified five primary objectives of companies’ use of social media which centre on communications and marketing: listening, talking, energising, supporting and embracing. For First Direct’s purposes, I suggest a sixth objective: transacting. The goal is to move into the distribution and transaction spaces by delivering banking products and services on Facebook, where customers are investing their online time. This is particularly desirable given the competitive threats posed by products including Facebook Credits (Facebook, 2012e) and PayPal Send Money (Facebook, 2012f) or a potential Facebook app for Barclays Pingit (Barclays, 2012).
The advent of social commerce mirrors that of e-commerce in the nineties, with its related opportunities and threats. As Wenninger (2000, p.3) noted, “e-commerce would create opportunities for banks to strengthen their relationships with customers, sell additional services, and prevent encroachment on their business activities by the technology companies and other nonbank financial service providers…” and “[banks] will be caught off guard by the changes, unable to anticipate new forms of competition…”. Although social commerce can currently be characterised as a sustaining technology (Christensen, cited in INM354, Session 8, s.8), which maintains the performance trajectory of e-commerce, it possesses future disruptive potential by changing the method and process of payments.
First Direct could develop an app for sending and receiving money between Facebook friends, paying for products on ‘liked’ storefronts and making in-app purchases. The app would operate as a digital wallet which can either be linked to users’ current accounts or preloaded with cash. Its unique selling points would be payment security, the confidence inspired by a regulated financial institution, speed and ease-of-use. While product purchases on Facebook is a nascent market, there are immediate opportunities for peer-to-peer transactions including personal lending, gifts and international money transfer. These can be processed using the bank’s existing infrastructure and therefore at minimal cost to users.
Breaking into the in-app purchases market would be a significant challenge, particularly with Facebook Credits as the monopoly virtual currency. However it is weakened by its inability to be converted to cash or exchanged with other users, as noted by Cyran (2011). This provides an opportunity to link the credits to offline transactions, which can be achieved through partnerships with app developers or directly with Facebook. American Express pioneered this strategy by allowing customers to redeem their Membership Rewards points to purchase virtual goods from Zynga (American Express, 2010), the largest social games publisher and Facebook’s biggest single source of income (Nuttall, 2012). First Direct could bulk-purchase credits from Facebook and offer it as a benefit on the First Directory product (First Direct, 2012a) as well as a reward for using the virtual wallet.
Traditional products could be repackaged with social features. Taking a step beyond customers recommending First Direct to their friends through their Facebook page, a version of the Regular Saver Account (First Direct, 2012b) offered on Facebook would allow friends to pool their monthly savings together and earn a higher interest rate on a pro-rata basis. A secure app would enable them to monitor transactions and balances without having to log on the Internet banking website (First Direct, 2012c). The concept is an adaptation of rotating credit associations such as the ‘Esusu’ traditionally practised in Nigeria, where members make regular contributions to a fund which they all take turns to benefit from (Microfinance Nigeria, 2010). Successfully implemented within applicable guidelines of the Financial Services Authority, this would be a revolutionary transformation of First Direct’s business network, based on the Venkatraman Framework of IT-enabled business transformation (cited in INM354, Session 1, s.7). It would expand their customer categories from individuals (personal and corporate) to communities with associated economies of scale while creating a new social network channel in addition to telephone, mobile and Internet banking.
STRATEGY
Blanchard (2011, p.16) emphasised that social media does not exist in its own silo but rather plugs into the business. Hence the effect of these innovations on First Direct’s relationships with customers must be aligned with their corporate strategy. The success of their push into social banking will rest on every employee, from executive management to customer sales representatives.
First Direct’s products, services and innovations are geared towards one outcome – offering customers what the bank knows they want (First Direct, 2012d) and what their customers want on Facebook is to build relationships and interact with others in their network. The provision of distribution and transaction services which empower these social interactions will make First Direct a valued partner in customers’ everyday life, further realising their vision of being ‘more than just a bank’ (First Direct, 2012d).
In order to measure the success of the social banking strategy, they will need to establish key performance indicators (KPI) that will be used to determine their return on investment (ROI). The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) developed by Kaplan and Norton (cited in Hung-Yi, 2012, p.307) is an ideal framework for the exercise as it combines four financial and non-financial measures: Finance, Customer, Internal Process and Learning and Growth. A study on constructing a strategy map for banks using KPIs grouped into the four BSC perspectives (Hung-Yi, 2012, p.316) identifies Customer as the central BSC perspective and Customer Satisfaction and Customer Retention as the central KPIs. Success in key nonfinancial measures precedes success in key financial measures, that is, they will increase ROI by knowing what their customers want and giving it to them.
The study further reveals that “increasing the sales volume of products and services by promoting both efficiency and effectiveness of sales tends to drive the retention of existing customers, the enhancement of customer satisfaction and the improvement of sales performance” and sales performance “receives the strongest influence from management performance”.
The conclusion is that in order to empower customers’ social interactions with social banking, thereby improving the bank’s capacity to satisfy and retain them, the executive management need to implement measures to maximise the performance of customer sales representatives. Hence while customer satisfaction and retention attributable to the social banking app will be the primary indicators of success, the strategic improvement path (Hung-Yi, 2012, p.317) to their achievement starts with implementing the right management mechanisms to train, equip and motivate the sales representatives who will be promoting the product to customers and supporting them in its use.
TECHNOLOGY
The question of which platform to use is already answered – Facebook’s uniqueness over other popular social media sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube is its provision of tools for sharing more than just information and knowledge; users can share their life journeys and experiences in a rich format and this accounts for its market dominance. Consequently First Direct’s core customer demographics of 35-44 year olds are already active on this platform. Furthermore the interactivity and security features necessary for the social banking app require the technological robustness of Facebook for its deployment.
What need to be determined are the technology partners that will design and build the social banking app. Li and Bernoff (2011, l.1207) caution against selecting the company with the lowest bid or the most features. It is of greater importance to choose a company with a suitable track record of app development, vision to stay ahead of the rapidly changing technological landscape and clear understanding of the First Direct brand as well as their objectives.
It will be important to get the user experience right, ensuring the app’s interface maintains consistency and seamlessly integrates with those of the mobile, Internet and telephone channels (Bussmann et al., 2011) while blending with the underlying Facebook architecture.
The degree of sophistication (exploiting the specific characteristics of Facebook) and customisation (providing individualised services to users of the app) will also need to be considered (Angehrn and Meyer, 1997). The app should deeply integrate with such core Facebook Platform technologies as Social Plugins (Facebook, 2012g), Graph API (Facebook, 2012h) and Platform Dialogs (Facebook, 2012i) for it to make the most of the social network site. This would have the added benefit of giving users individual control over how it is used and shared, enhancing its value proposition.
CONCLUSION
The growth rate of Facebook users and the length of time spent on the site not only underscore its preeminent position over other social media destinations but also its successful weaving into the fabric of society. As First Direct’s Generation X customers are actively using social media professionally and personally, the ranks of Generation Y professionals who have grown up with the Internet and social technologies (cited in INM354, Session 9, s.4) will continue to swell. Given that they are the pool that their new customers are drawn from (Garrett et al., 2007, p.2), it is imperative that the bank continuously innovates to ensure their products and services are adapted to customers’ lifestyle and technological competence.
They have an opportunity to define a new era of social banking that could revolutionise the sector and establish First Direct as the bank for the ‘social generation’. To be more than just a bank, they must benchmark themselves against their customers and not just their competitors.
The fundamental question is, are customers ready to move beyond posting updates on Facebook to engaging in commercial transactions? Anderson et al (2011, p.4) estimate that the global market for social commerce in hard goods, excluding services, will grow from US$5 billion in 2011 to US$30 billion by 2015. The key to unlocking the potential of this market will be to focus on the relational dimension of commerce rather than approaching it as a regular e-commerce channel, a point highlighted by Cecere et al (2010, p.14). This is underscored by U.S. retailers such as Gap and Gamestop who have closed their floundering Facebook storefronts (Lutz, 2012). Conversely the CEO of 8th Bridge, a social shopping software provider, countered with the examples of Ticketmaster and Delta Airlines’ integration of a social experience into their Facebook storefronts (Gerten, 2012).
It is equally important to understand how customers currently use social media in order to align the bank’s strategy with their tendencies. Forrester’s Social Technographics Profile of the age range of First Direct’s core customers (Empowered, 2012) shows 77 percent use social networking sites, ranging from maintaining a profile to regularly generating content (Li and Bernoff, 2011, l.794), with overlaps between the different groups. Paul Say, Head of E-Marketing, has further observed that “the pipeline of new customers is increasingly dominated by…digital natives” as quoted in Garrett et al. (2007, p.2). Hence a large percentage of their customers are conceivably on Facebook and there is the potential to deliver relevant social banking services to them.
OBJECTIVES
Li and Bernoff (2011, l.1118) identified five primary objectives of companies’ use of social media which centre on communications and marketing: listening, talking, energising, supporting and embracing. For First Direct’s purposes, I suggest a sixth objective: transacting. The goal is to move into the distribution and transaction spaces by delivering banking products and services on Facebook, where customers are investing their online time. This is particularly desirable given the competitive threats posed by products including Facebook Credits (Facebook, 2012e) and PayPal Send Money (Facebook, 2012f) or a potential Facebook app for Barclays Pingit (Barclays, 2012).
The advent of social commerce mirrors that of e-commerce in the nineties, with its related opportunities and threats. As Wenninger (2000, p.3) noted, “e-commerce would create opportunities for banks to strengthen their relationships with customers, sell additional services, and prevent encroachment on their business activities by the technology companies and other nonbank financial service providers…” and “[banks] will be caught off guard by the changes, unable to anticipate new forms of competition…”. Although social commerce can currently be characterised as a sustaining technology (Christensen, cited in INM354, Session 8, s.8), which maintains the performance trajectory of e-commerce, it possesses future disruptive potential by changing the method and process of payments.
First Direct could develop an app for sending and receiving money between Facebook friends, paying for products on ‘liked’ storefronts and making in-app purchases. The app would operate as a digital wallet which can either be linked to users’ current accounts or preloaded with cash. Its unique selling points would be payment security, the confidence inspired by a regulated financial institution, speed and ease-of-use. While product purchases on Facebook is a nascent market, there are immediate opportunities for peer-to-peer transactions including personal lending, gifts and international money transfer. These can be processed using the bank’s existing infrastructure and therefore at minimal cost to users.
Breaking into the in-app purchases market would be a significant challenge, particularly with Facebook Credits as the monopoly virtual currency. However it is weakened by its inability to be converted to cash or exchanged with other users, as noted by Cyran (2011). This provides an opportunity to link the credits to offline transactions, which can be achieved through partnerships with app developers or directly with Facebook. American Express pioneered this strategy by allowing customers to redeem their Membership Rewards points to purchase virtual goods from Zynga (American Express, 2010), the largest social games publisher and Facebook’s biggest single source of income (Nuttall, 2012). First Direct could bulk-purchase credits from Facebook and offer it as a benefit on the First Directory product (First Direct, 2012a) as well as a reward for using the virtual wallet.
Traditional products could be repackaged with social features. Taking a step beyond customers recommending First Direct to their friends through their Facebook page, a version of the Regular Saver Account (First Direct, 2012b) offered on Facebook would allow friends to pool their monthly savings together and earn a higher interest rate on a pro-rata basis. A secure app would enable them to monitor transactions and balances without having to log on the Internet banking website (First Direct, 2012c). The concept is an adaptation of rotating credit associations such as the ‘Esusu’ traditionally practised in Nigeria, where members make regular contributions to a fund which they all take turns to benefit from (Microfinance Nigeria, 2010). Successfully implemented within applicable guidelines of the Financial Services Authority, this would be a revolutionary transformation of First Direct’s business network, based on the Venkatraman Framework of IT-enabled business transformation (cited in INM354, Session 1, s.7). It would expand their customer categories from individuals (personal and corporate) to communities with associated economies of scale while creating a new social network channel in addition to telephone, mobile and Internet banking.
STRATEGY
Blanchard (2011, p.16) emphasised that social media does not exist in its own silo but rather plugs into the business. Hence the effect of these innovations on First Direct’s relationships with customers must be aligned with their corporate strategy. The success of their push into social banking will rest on every employee, from executive management to customer sales representatives.
First Direct’s products, services and innovations are geared towards one outcome – offering customers what the bank knows they want (First Direct, 2012d) and what their customers want on Facebook is to build relationships and interact with others in their network. The provision of distribution and transaction services which empower these social interactions will make First Direct a valued partner in customers’ everyday life, further realising their vision of being ‘more than just a bank’ (First Direct, 2012d).
In order to measure the success of the social banking strategy, they will need to establish key performance indicators (KPI) that will be used to determine their return on investment (ROI). The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) developed by Kaplan and Norton (cited in Hung-Yi, 2012, p.307) is an ideal framework for the exercise as it combines four financial and non-financial measures: Finance, Customer, Internal Process and Learning and Growth. A study on constructing a strategy map for banks using KPIs grouped into the four BSC perspectives (Hung-Yi, 2012, p.316) identifies Customer as the central BSC perspective and Customer Satisfaction and Customer Retention as the central KPIs. Success in key nonfinancial measures precedes success in key financial measures, that is, they will increase ROI by knowing what their customers want and giving it to them.
The study further reveals that “increasing the sales volume of products and services by promoting both efficiency and effectiveness of sales tends to drive the retention of existing customers, the enhancement of customer satisfaction and the improvement of sales performance” and sales performance “receives the strongest influence from management performance”.
The conclusion is that in order to empower customers’ social interactions with social banking, thereby improving the bank’s capacity to satisfy and retain them, the executive management need to implement measures to maximise the performance of customer sales representatives. Hence while customer satisfaction and retention attributable to the social banking app will be the primary indicators of success, the strategic improvement path (Hung-Yi, 2012, p.317) to their achievement starts with implementing the right management mechanisms to train, equip and motivate the sales representatives who will be promoting the product to customers and supporting them in its use.
TECHNOLOGY
The question of which platform to use is already answered – Facebook’s uniqueness over other popular social media sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube is its provision of tools for sharing more than just information and knowledge; users can share their life journeys and experiences in a rich format and this accounts for its market dominance. Consequently First Direct’s core customer demographics of 35-44 year olds are already active on this platform. Furthermore the interactivity and security features necessary for the social banking app require the technological robustness of Facebook for its deployment.
What need to be determined are the technology partners that will design and build the social banking app. Li and Bernoff (2011, l.1207) caution against selecting the company with the lowest bid or the most features. It is of greater importance to choose a company with a suitable track record of app development, vision to stay ahead of the rapidly changing technological landscape and clear understanding of the First Direct brand as well as their objectives.
It will be important to get the user experience right, ensuring the app’s interface maintains consistency and seamlessly integrates with those of the mobile, Internet and telephone channels (Bussmann et al., 2011) while blending with the underlying Facebook architecture.
The degree of sophistication (exploiting the specific characteristics of Facebook) and customisation (providing individualised services to users of the app) will also need to be considered (Angehrn and Meyer, 1997). The app should deeply integrate with such core Facebook Platform technologies as Social Plugins (Facebook, 2012g), Graph API (Facebook, 2012h) and Platform Dialogs (Facebook, 2012i) for it to make the most of the social network site. This would have the added benefit of giving users individual control over how it is used and shared, enhancing its value proposition.
CONCLUSION
The growth rate of Facebook users and the length of time spent on the site not only underscore its preeminent position over other social media destinations but also its successful weaving into the fabric of society. As First Direct’s Generation X customers are actively using social media professionally and personally, the ranks of Generation Y professionals who have grown up with the Internet and social technologies (cited in INM354, Session 9, s.4) will continue to swell. Given that they are the pool that their new customers are drawn from (Garrett et al., 2007, p.2), it is imperative that the bank continuously innovates to ensure their products and services are adapted to customers’ lifestyle and technological competence.
They have an opportunity to define a new era of social banking that could revolutionise the sector and establish First Direct as the bank for the ‘social generation’. To be more than just a bank, they must benchmark themselves against their customers and not just their competitors.
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