Yes, we live in the age where many of us just love to talk to the unknown millions in nanoseconds. We are impatient and we want it all fast and hassle free. We live in the Face book and Twitter age.
Its been making rounds now that if you aren’t tweeting, updating status, clicking pictures, reading feeds, following buzz, instagram-ing, sharing blogs, you are just as old and unpopular as the dinosaur. Who had thought that we would read a statement like this and agree with it some day? The truth is social media has dug its significant position in our lives and we love it more than we loathe it.
Several brands around different industries have hunted down ways to make the best use of social media. They have learnt the trends, adapted to the change and are doing the best to be in the competition. Financial sector is pulling up its socks too. I spent my Saturday exploring and enjoying a fully-integrated social bank account, an initiative by KOTAK MAHINDRA.
Lets do a questionnaire around BANKING and SOCIAL MEDIA before I talk more on my experience.
- Do you feel banking is boring and it isn’t customer friendly?
- How excited will you be if your bank adopted social media and you could go banking with your friends?
- Will you prefer using a social media channel over a phone call to solve a problem with your bank?
- Do you mind sharing financial products and services updates through your bank’s face book and twitter accounts?
- Do you wish to invite friends and followers to have a account in the same bank as yours?
BANKING AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Since 2010, social media has been growing its wings in banking too but has been ineffective. In 2013, it was said and written that the need of the hour was that banks must think forward to use social media as an engagement tool to market and reach out to the customers. Once an account is opened or a loan is transacted, banks only believe in sending statements once in a month otherwise they prefer to stay away which I really don’t like. Why don’t the relationship managers call the customers regularly instead of once in blue moon?
To me, banking has been seriously unattractive and unfriendly forever. A query to them involves many things to do. Not just the call but the pins, account number, codes, etc makes it irksome quite often. I prefer not to call until its too urgent. However, with other industries things have become real quick and praise worthy. I remember I needed a payment slip of an electronic appliance that I had bought a few months ago, I tweeted to the brand and within an hour I had a mail with the e-copy of the bill. There were no hassles at all.
In factif I can have my favorite fashion brand as a FB friend why can’t my bank be my friend on face book. It would be easy to reach to it at the click of the mouse just like Internet banking. Wish banking too becomes a cake walk someday soon in future.
Jifi says, Don’t worry, I am here now. You can have all the fun.
Yes! Banking has become about TWEET and SHARE. Get a self invite through a mail. Share with as many facebook friends to earn points. And more, request a cheque book, transaction history, account balance and anything around your account with just a tweet to @KotakJifi.
KOTAK MAHINDRA is here with a first of its kind, for the tech savvy, for the GenY a model that makes us enjoy banking in our digital comfort.
Its salient features are…
- A banking account with multiple digital features and well integrated with facebook and twitter.
- Banking updates through twitter. All personal conversation to be handled through DM. Social banking hashtags to be used for general queries.
- Banking thats also about “spreading the word.”
- No minimum balance needed for this account.
- An interesting Auto sweep facility wherein a balance over Rs. 25,000/- gets automatically moved to a Term Deposit at applicable interest rates.
- Reward and loyalty points for online transactions and for adding friends to the JiFi network.
- A free 1 year subscription of Kotak Money Watch with Jifi.
- Jifi customers have access to all conventional bank offerings as well.
My Play Around with KOTAK JIFI was easy-peasy!
https://www.kotakjifi.com/
It was simple as entering my details and sending an invite to myself.
I made my account today and I show you this because even if someone hacks my facebook account, the miscreant can only see my reward points and use those points. They will not be able to do any transactions or check my bank balance. So its all SAFE and SOUND!
Social media is about being on the go and words of mouth. Suggestions of friends always work and we love sending invites to our friends on FB. People who are absolutely crazy about social media have lots of loyalty points to earn. I send a lot of invites to my friends too. It was fun.
The Dashboard is here and you can see my Points. So even though I haven’t invested anything except time, I already have some balance in there. Yay!!!
There was quite much to explore about JIFI account but the best part is the website was very easy to use. Everything about it was so attractive and well managed. All the information was available at one place and thus I am sure gonna share and transact here.
At the end of this whole new experience of banking and learning about Jifi, I ended up a happy customer.
Last but not the least.
In my view, other banks will sure catch up with this idea and Social media is sure to have a positive impact on managing reputation, improving marketing effectiveness, and increasing sales of the banking sector.
Happy Blogging.
This is my post for blogging contest organized by Indiblogger and Kotak Mahindra.
Photos Courtesy: Jifi Twitter and Facebook portals.
