About AMB Amro
About AMB AmroABN AMRO was founded around 3 centuries ago in Holland and since then it has emerged into one of the biggest European groups engaged in financial services. It has presence in 5 continents and has a total assets value of €150 billion. Its mission is to be known as a professional, trusted and an ambitious brand. It boasts of high quality products delivery to its commercial, private and retail banking customers.
ABN AMRO wanted to hear and learn from its customers so that it is able to be more transparent, ensure relevancy and the most important aspect of any business, fostering trust among its clients. It partnered with Bazaarvoice to achieve these goals.
Business Objective of ABN AMRO
Following were the business objectives of ABN AMRO
- To educate customers on financial matters and also learn from them their expectations from the bank.
- Engaging the customers through word of mouth/real dialogue so as to improve transparency, relevancy, conversions and thus the bottom line figures.
Strategy/Approach adopted by ABN AMRO
Success of ABN AMRO came from the fact that it clearly focussed on putting its clients first. The bank has been quick to respond to the opportunities and changes in today’s digital age. It has successfully ventured in the world of social media by building a strong presence on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. It has been focussing on becoming a part of its customer’s financial lives. It strives to educate people on financial matters and at the same time also learn from them, their expectations from the bank.
- Keeping in mind the future requirements of business, ABN AMRO is striving to develop new ways of creating, nurturing and concreting its customer relationships. One such approach was User- generated content by way of social media marketing, which was yet to be proved successful in gaining traction in the financial service industry.
- However, ABN AMRO, realised that it is not wise to ignore this rapidly growing channel of people engagement and lose relevance. Thus the bank knew that it required a word-of-mouth partner that could engage clients and help deliver real dialogue, transparency and bottom line results.
Thus with these high stakes and its reputation on line, ABN AMRO partnered with Bazaarvoice to lead its word of mouth social media engagement strategy.- It was immediately clear that ABN AMRO required flexibility and scalability, which can provide options to the company to start small but at the same time also allows rapid growth as and when required. In addition to this, the progress of the co. had to be based on evidence for the sake of reassuring the internal stakeholders. For keeping all these essential points in line, a solution was required that could provide detailed reporting at each
stage. This solution would also provide maximum returns by allowing real time refinement. - A solution known as ‘Conversations’ was identified, which enabled business to engage better with their customers by way of initiating authentic dialogues via rating and review. Current clients who were using Co.’s ‘Continuous Travel Insurance’ service were provided the opportunity to rate the product and their experience on scale of 1 to 5 stars after the completion of damage report process. Though there were possible risks associated with the free-text reviews but they were reconciled with a unique moderation system that used a combination of human insight and advanced technology.
Thus with these high stakes and its reputation on line, ABN AMRO partnered with Bazaarvoice to lead its word of mouth social media engagement strategy.
stage. This solution would also provide maximum returns by allowing real time refinement.Key Results
Results were quite overwhelming and immediate:
- Within 2 weeks in January 2012, around 93% of clients who used their travel insurance service rated it with at least 4 stars.
- The conversion rates, which is defined as an inquiry from the ‘start to completion of a quote’, saw a jump of 40 percent.
- As per one of co.’s social media expert, ABN AMRO is exploiting just 10% of solution’s potential currently so there is lot of room for more implementation. Taking this into account the co. is planning to introduce ‘Conversations’ for eight more products.
Key Learnings
This case study demonstrate how social media marketing can be used in the financial service sector to demonstrate transparency, develop trusts and induce new business development.- Authentic dialogue via social media with current as well as prospective customers builds and solidifies trust.
- Usage of a customised app or a solution for your target market helps in engaging more customers as this not only interests them but at the same time gives a feeling to the customers that they are getting heard. This was evident from the fact that about 93% of customers, rated ABN AMRO’s Continuous Travel Insurance at four out of five stars and above.
- Transparency with your customers and positive impressions helps in driving conversions as evident from the 40% uplift in the co.’s conversion rate.
This case study demonstrate how social media marketing can be used in the financial service sector to demonstrate transparency, develop trusts and induce new business development.
