How Social Media can succeed and fail at the same time

I recently had a less than ideal experience buying tires a couple of weeks ago. I'd gone out to the Mr. Tire website looking for 2 tires for my car. I found a reasonably priced option and called the local Mr. Tire. I'd bought tires there in the past and had a fine experience. I was informed that the shop didn't have the tires, but the manager could go pick them up and have them there the next day (Sunday). I agreed and we set up an appointment for 12:30 on Sunday.

I showed up for the appointment and found out the tires weren't there. He made some excuse about not having the truck the day before and couldn't get out to pick them, the warehouse was closed on Sunday, blah blah blah. Frankly, it didn't really matter why. So, even with the "discount" to compensate me for hassle, I left with two new tires and paying $385, about $100 more than I had planned.

Like any savvy consumer, I decided to go back out on the website and compare the price from my bill to the one on the site. The tire price on the web site was $184 per tire. When I looked at the bill, the list price of the tire was $190 and the "discount" reduced it to $180. Wow, what a generous gesture. It felt like a "Bait and Switch" routine. I'm getting angry just thinking about it.

So I went out and tweeted the following" Had a horrible experience at @MrTireAuto.Won't be going back there again.". I received an empathetic response from them and, after going back and forth for a few days, sent the person an email outlining the whole story. She responded and ended the email with the following" I'm going to pass this on to our Customer Service team for followup with you and the store manager directly." It's been almost two weeks and I've heard nothing from either.

So what's the moral of the story? Make sure you align your social media interactions online with your service and delivery channels off line. This has made an already bad experience even worse. Not only have I tweeted about it, I'm now writing a blog post. When I worked for 1st Mariner Bank, we had a similar experience except we were on the receiving end of a tweet that stated" First Mariner Bank- you're dead to me". (I was the lucky one who had to deal with that!) To see how we handled it much differently, check out this post, First Mariner Bank: A New Shining Star in Social Media PR

Social Networking Systems in Japan

Despite the challenging travel conditions around Baltimore yesterday, we had the pleasure of meeting with Daisuke Ishii and Yukihisa Hode, two Senior Researchers from The Center for Financial Industry Information Systems (Japan). The FISC is a Japanese nonprofit research organization founded in 1984 and supported by some 700 Japanese financial services organizations and vendors marketing to that industry. The meeting was coordinated by Michael Parentice, an independent consultant based in the United States.
FISC's current research project relates to new media and social networking in Japan's financial services industry. As input, they are seeking best practice examples from leading U.S. financial institutions that are leaders in the use of social media. Based on Mr. Prentice's research, he felt that 1st Mariner Bank was one of the organizations that they should meet. This was the first visit on their five day trip across the country that includes meetings with Bank of America, Umpqua Bank, and Wells Fargo. We are honored to be included in this short list of U.S. financial institutions.
There are over 700 banks and credit unions in Japan, ranging from four mega-banks to over 600 smaller community institutions under $2 billion. Adoption rates have lagged behind other industries, where 10.5% of all businesses are active in social networks while FI's are at 6.9%. Mixi, the largest social network in Japan, has over 17.9 million users, so there is plenty of opportunity to connect with these consumers.

As we discussed the evolution of our efforts, it became clear that there are significant challenges to their FI's involvement in social networks. Here are just a few of the points articulated by our guests:

• Given the conservative nature of the banking industry in Japan, it has been very difficult to get consensus across the organization to engage their customers through the social networks.


• The Japanese culture is one of collaboration. So many of the initial social media efforts have focused on internal corporate use for information sharing and communication.


• Selecting and agreeing on the target markets. Again, by working through a consensus management style, it takes time to make these decisions and take action.

The challenge they face is that social media is messy, always changing, and an uncontrollable space. Sometimes you just have to have an initial plan, make the leap, and learn on the fly.

A Friendly Wager With Geezeo

So Sunday I'm getting ready for the Ravens-Patriots playoff game, picking up some steamed shrimp, when I get a tweet from @pglyman from Geezeo. He and @shawnward are Pats fans and they want to place a friendly wager on the game. Sounds good. To hear (and see) the rest of the story, check out this video we made about the outcome. Hope you enjoy it!

Social Media Levels the Playing Field

Last week, there was an interesting article in the American Banker about the use of social media. It focused on both large and small banks and their integration of these tools into their companies.



Bank of America, for example, uses Twitter to monitor complaints and respond to customers. They have six people who are dedicated to staffing the Twitter account @BofA_Help and monitoring conversations on Twitter. A smaller, regional bank in Wisconsin, North Shore Bank, uses Facebook as a way to connect with customers, provide photos and videos, and conduct contests.



Since we began, we've used these tools in much the same way with very encouraging results. Given our size, we don't have anywhere near the same number of resources working on our Twitter accounts (@1stMarinerBank and @FMBCustServ), much less full time. The beauty of social media, and the applications available to monitor activity, is that you don't need to have a lot of resources. It provides a more level playing field where size and scale are no longer issues. In fact, I would contend that we can actually respond more quickly and in a more personal way than our larger competitors. And in this industry, like many others, the only way to differentiate ourselves is through a positive customer experience.