Globally, the banking sector has had a tough couple of years. Banks were blamed — and not unfairly either — for plunging the world into a recession through reckless lending coupled with exotic derivative instruments.
In some countries future generations will still bear the cost of bailouts, in others austerity measures have taken a significant bite out of social spending. And stories of huge executive bonuses for the bosses who oversaw the debacle definitely don’t make banks more loveable either.
In South Africa things played out very differently, but the ripples were still felt, and local banks responded in what appears to have been a pretty effective manner.
“In the US, with the sub-prime crisis, the impact [on reputation] was significant and across the financial services category,” says Bernice Samuels, First National Bank’s head of media for just a few months shy of the last year. “The US context is the US context, and here we saw banks attempt to respond to the local reality.
”Things were hard on some of our customers, so at the time FNB ran commercials recognising that, and saying ‘let us find ways to help you with your bond repayments’ to address that. That was the way to approach it.”
Samuels says sentiment towards banks can easily move as the economy does, with those managing the flow of money painted with the same brush as the economy as a whole: when growth stalls, money grows scarce and belts need to be tightened, banks see their overall reputations affected.
FNB, however, has positioned itself as a helpful brand, a bank that will assist new businesses, support growth and expansion during the good times, and likewise help find ways to cut costs or just make it through the bad times. That means, among other things, making sure that there is always somebody on the other side of the desk or telephone line who will respond, if not immediately, then by calling back with at least an update (if not a solution) so customers know their queries are being dealt with.
Expressing helpfulness simply by advertising alone wouldn’t cut it. It also means talking about problems. “When we don’t get it right, we need to be open and transparent,” Samuels says, referring to a systems outage FNB suffered in early April, which shut down some of its services for a short time.
“You can’t skirt that kind of issue, you have to keep customers advised every step of the way, tell them exactly what is going on. That is what creates the bedrock of trust… At the same time, if the system is up and you walk into a branch but you get poor service, that isn’t helpful. We need to build honest, enduring, long-term relationships.”
Having such a relationship seems particularly important for banks, which have dealings with the same customers for years, if not decades, and where the services provided are complex, essential and can change over time. Once the relationship has been established, that provides just a little bit of leeway for when things go wrong.
“Corporate reputation allows you some space,” says Nikki Twomey, group brand marketing director for Standard Bank. “It depends on the crisis that may be affecting your reputation, but if you are dealing with customers who have been with you over the years, people can be a little forgiving. If, for example, you make a bad pricing decision, they will rely on the fact that you’ll listen to them, that the organisation will correct that and do what is best for the consumer. You just can’t bugger it up too many times, then you do start eroding your reputation.”
Hard times can also have an ongoing effect on a company for years to come, if not managed correctly. Twomey says Standard Bank will closely consider things such as staff perceptions and perceptions around working for the bank, after going through a retrenchment process like it did recently.
“That can be quite a challenge. We want to be attractive as an employment brand, even when we’re not employing straight away, so that we can bring in good people. That means looking at a whole lot of things, even our carbon footprint, because social relevance is important and graduates want to work for companies that are aware of their carbon footprint.”