Blogging bankers would have a good yarn or two
Thursday November 26 2009
THE Americans have been doing it for years, but now Irish banks are considering using blogs to strip away their top-heavy image and expose customers to the musings of ordinary staff.
The legendary Wells Fargo employee blog took centre stage at the Marketing Institute's recent summit, with industry guru Martin Thomas espousing the site's ability to foster trust by taking the fat cats out of the communications loop.
Eagerly listening in the Four Seasons conference room were senior marketing types from National Irish Bank, Ulster Bank and AIB.
Ulster's trio of delegates weren't keen to outline their bank's perspective on the new frontier of customer communication, but National Irish and AIB were more forthcoming.
"The Wells Fargo case is interesting in that it demonstrates the argument that people still prefer to deal with people, and not organisations," says David Slattery, senior manager with National Irish's products and marketing division.
"The banking sector in Ireland needs to see how this dialogue would work with customers, and how it compares to more traditional channels such as face-to-face meetings or telephone communications, and then see how they can act on the feedback gathered.
"We in National Irish Bank and the wider Danske Group are exploring this area at the moment."
Over at AIB, a spokesman said their marketing bosses also find the Wells Fargo case an "interesting development".
"We're investigating how it could work in an AIB context but we haven't made any decisions on it yet," he added.
A flick through Wells Fargo's offering shows smiling bloggers giving the "lowdown on student loans" as well as glimpses through Wells Fargo's historical archives and a running commentary on the bank's merger with Wachovia.
Between NAMA, the negative equity crisis, the mooted merger of EBS, Irish Nationwide and Permanent TSB and the ongoing rows over senior executive pay and bonuses, Irish blogging bankers certainly wouldn't be short of things to write about for the foreseeable future.
Irish Independent
