Financial Services Can Find Success in Social

Today we close out the week of our examination of enterprise social collaboration tools by focusing on their impact and usage in the financial service industry.  

According to survey data, employees in financial services are the most likely (74 percent) to have management restrict their social networking usage due to security concerns. Financial service employees are also the most likely (56 percent) to be say their management is concerned that employees will disclose sensitive information about the company through social media. While this is not particularly surprising due to the nature of their business, 77 percent of respondents say they want technology that makes them more productive at work, and 33 percent would even be willing to spend their own money on it. So, how can social tools benefit banking and insurance companies?

Employees expect to connect from multiple mobile devices via social and communication tools so that they can properly support customer’s multi-channel experience through social, mobile, online and in-person interactions.  Today’s banking customers also expect to choose their own medium of interaction with these companies, and social technology tools are essential to meeting these demands. Banks can be using social tools to offer a personalized financial shopping experience, where customers expect to have more options for how they interact with businesses.

In addition, customers expect to be heard, and fast. Twenty percent of customers who complain on social media expect a response within one hour. Banks can also use social enterprise tools to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty by listening, participating and moderating consumer behavior through social media.

These examples demonstrate how important enterprise social tools can be to the banking industry, however they are far from the only industry using these tools.

Check out our slideshow on the Four benefits of enterprise social and five key ways to start using it here.

The insurance industry provides numerous examples of how social enterprise tools are essential to meeting business demands. Across all industries, work is becoming increasingly global with teams and business more dispersed than ever.  Insurance companies often offer multiple products and services – life, property, casualty, etc. These offerings vary by subsidiary or region and their employees are distributed geographically. Insurers use enterprise social tools to facilitate communications between agents and customers across the channel of preference in real time from anywhere across the globe.

Nationwide utilized Yammer to modernize employee communication across the company. Not only did it help their senior leadership communicate better with employees, it also allows workers to engage with each other much more successfully across the organization. It’s helped them make better decisions and provides a better experience for their customers. Check out their video case study here.   

Shining the spotlight on the insurance and banking industries can help illustrate how enterprise social tools are impacting financial service industries across the board.

Thanks for joining us this week as we explored how enterprise social networking technology can benefit businesses across industries. Be sure to check our new Microsoft Business Newsroom for more information on this survey and other business news from the company.