Social Media Analytics – BFSI (Part I)

bfsi-social-media-analytics-fusion-analytics-world

Competition is heating among major banks: Using social media customer perceptions to improve financial services

Avoiding the influence of online spread of words is no longer possible in present day interconnected world.  The capability of consumers to persuade business conduct and impact organization planning in unexpected and, sometimes, unsolicited ways has grown manifold particularly with respect to banks.  One strong complaint from an irritated customer going viral can make matter worse and spiral into a full-fledged crisis in a period of few hours. In this scenario, realizing what customers think, feel and mention about your organization in real time is even more vital for banks.

Largely, banks need to radically improve customer experience. Technology is the backbone for this kind of effort and banking institutions need to commit to upgrading their existing and future IT systems. With use of technology, banks receive the information they require to make almost real time strategic business decisions and accordingly correspond with customers. Also, banks need to remain relevant and strengthen customer relations by coming up with innovative products and services that fosters growth.

Present-day customers are more tending to depend on the advice of friends and known people while making important decision related to financial products and services. And, they are embracing social media in the form of social networking, social shopping and social bookmarking more than previously as a source to share experiences, collect information and make important decisions.

The competition amongst banking majors is heating up with close competition between Visa, Wells Fargo, AMEX and JPM Chase. As AMEX and Wells Fargo tries to move ahead in its quest for dominance, the competition for the top slot is bound to intensify in times ahead.  In the current post, we have tried to track these major banks on social media and analyze the buzz around them. For the deep dive analysis, we have focused on three key factors –

  1. Share of Volume,
  2. Sentiment Balance, and
  3. Top Topics of Discussion about these brands in social media conversations.

Let’s see the performance of the banks on each of these metrics:

  1. Share of Volume:

Share of volume is the relative share of a brand in all the buzz happening on social media about the industry. Though, it does not directly specify popularity of a brand or lack of it, it is a great indicator of awareness about the brand on various social media channels.share-of-volume-bfsi-fusion-analytics-world

Above chart shows share of volume for various financial majors with respect to one another. It is clear from the chart that Visa leads the pack with Wells Fargo and AMEX at distant second and third spot on share of volume related to the buzz generated online.

  1. Sentiment Balance:

Sentiment balance shows the proportionate balance of positive and negative sentiments expressed in conversations from social media. Fusion Analytics World automatically categorizes data under positive, negative and neutral sentiment using advanced text analysis and natural language processing.sentiment-balance-bfsi-social-media-analytics-fusion-analytics-world

The chart clearly indicates that Sberbank has the overall best sentiment balance followed neck and neck by Standard Chartered Bank and Bank of China. On the other hand, China Construction Bank has the worst sentiment balance followed by ICBC since difference between their positive and negative sentiments is negative indicating much higher negative sentiments for both the banks in comparison to positive sentiments that Fusion Analytics World is tracking.

Visa with high volume and high negative sentiment indicates most of the conversations are not what their PR and Marketing teams would like to see. Insights like these help brands take immediate actions before things go out of control, especially by knowing the topics of discussion elaborated in the next section.

  1. Key Conversation Topics:

Now that we have understood where things stand in terms of volume and sentiment, we need to put that information into action. Improving a negative buzz or maintaining a positive buzz is only possible if one knows what are the hot topics people are buzzing about. The below analysis, helps to determine what topics a brand needs to concentrate on.key-conversation-topics-bfsi-fusion-analytics-world

The key topics of conversation are:

  • Deals & Offers
  • Stocks and Securities
  • Fraudulent Activity
  • Payments
  • Mortgage

The chart highlights relative importance of each topic for both brands from the point of view of their customers. Interesting to note that HSBC and TD Bank on topic related to Fraudulent Activity while Master Card and ICICI Bank lead on conversation linked to Payments. Visa sees conversation surrounding Debit Cards, Payments, Deals and Offers.

 

Profile Status
ACTIVE
Profile Info
 

Kalyan Banga226 Posts

I am Kalyan Banga, a Post Graduate in Business Analytics from Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta, a premier management institute, ranked best B-School in Asia in FT Masters management global rankings. I have spent 14 years in field of Research & Analytics.

2 Comments

Leave a Comment

4 × five =