Twitter causing shift away from call centres: Australian bank

The National Australia Bank’s (NAB) customers are increasingly turning to Twitter to have their customer complaints and enquires dealt with, the bank has claimed.

Speaking at a roundtable discussion on the role of social media in business, general manager of digital at the bank, Chris Smith, said NAB's contact centre is no longer the first port of call for customers.

“We get 30 million calls a year — is it [our use of social media] measurable and can we achieve that ROI? We’re getting there,” Smith said. “Are people using social media instead of calling in? There is some channel switching happening.”

Smith said the bank’s use of social media only took off recently, with , and its 'break up with your bank campaign' being a major step up for NAB, which now employ five employees primarily for social media.

“We’re quite new and don’t have much of a background in social media,” Smith said. “We’ve had some footprints here are there, but last year our CEO said we had to get out into the Twittersphere and use social media better.

“We wanted to differentiate ourselves from the other banks... we really used Twitter for our first entry to the social media space.”

The bank said it focused on using social media first rather than as a last resort, which helped it differentiate itself from competitors in the industry.

“Often in marketing campaigns, digital strategy comes last,” Smith said “We turned this on its head and said let’s start with a social media campaign.

“The journey we’re on is not just educating our customers but taking on the rest of our banking culture.”