Thankfully, not all banks (and piggy banks) are built equally and some understand 21st Century technology (and the immediacy of connecting with people) better than others.
Sparked by a recent thread of emails with an acquaintance who works in wealth management for a regional bank system, I randomly visited six U.S. bank websites and scrolled to their media contacts page. The results are curious:
- Sovereign Bank (my bank) has four media contacts: two in Boston and two in their Pennsylvania HQ. Each is accessible by work phone, cell phone, and email.
- Bank of America has about 20 media contacts, listed by geography or division, and including work phone and email.
- U.S. Bank has five people, complete with phone and fax numbers and email.
- Citizens Bank has about 15 people with phone and fax numbers. No email.
- CitiGroup (including Citibank) has a list of phone numbers and divisions, but no people names.
- Wachovia Bank has one media relations person with a phone number.
There are a few takeaways.
First, maybe it’s the lack of entering a newsroom in several years, but how many journalists use fax machines? I can assure you few bloggers do. Sell the fax machines and use the money to invest in new media.
Second, email is what everyone uses, yet the bottom three banks fail in this crucial element of communication.
Third, is CitiGroup crazy for not including the names of their media contacts??
Fourth, how can Wachovia survive with a single person in media relations?
Fifth, I leave to you. What am I missing?
Photo credit: Daniel Y. Go
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Ari Herzog is an online media strategist and Newburyport City Councilor-Elect.
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I can’t say this is surprising – I think financial services companies, long standing ones anyways, are behind the times on adopting social media. Healthcare I think is worse. These are the same companies that block YouTube and Facebook behind the firewall and don’t realize that people are talking about their brands. Perhaps one day they will learn and benefit from it.
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The fax thing is odd. I’m always surprised when journalists on Cision/MediaMap have profiles that say to contact them by fax or mail. I’m not talking about a few profiles; hundreds of them say it. To me, that means, “I don’t want to talk to you, so please send me a fax that I can ignore.”
With Wachovia you can log into your online account and send them an email. Someone usually gets back to you within 24 hours. If you don’t have a Wachovia account, then I guess it’s the good ‘ole telephone. Very interesting results you found.
Adam: Take a look at Wells Fargo, which among my cursory knowledge of online banks, gets high marks for authenticity and blogging. Numerous blogs at that!
Christina: I hear you. I can understand a bank’s loan officer having a fax machine. I cannot comprehend a bank’s media person having one.
Debbie: I don’t doubt their capabilities, but question the media side. Thanks!
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