As an avid Mint.com user – and one who’s on the precipice of taking the entirety of his personal banking activities “mobile” – I was intrigued when our CEO tossed me a 2 paragraph profile of Jwaala that he recently tore from a tech magazine.
Jwaala is a high-touch vendor, working closely with banks and smaller financial institutions by providing social-media tools to bring them up to speed with their Web 2.0 customers. As founder Andrew Taylor (former IBMer) claims, “We’re basically an arms dealer.” Translation: Jwaala offers banks the opportunity to select a number of tools and offerings from a diverse menu, ranging from text updates, expense reporting and search capabilities, and an “online safety deposit box” for bank customers with highly sensitive personal financial information.
Jwaala also offers a decidedly mobile set of services, catering explicitly to smartphone users. As the company indicates on its Web site: “At Jwaala we’ve made it simple and affordable for every financial institution to jump on the mobile bandwagon with a customizable, fully brandable iPhone application that allows your users to view their finances, check balances, search transactions, pay bills and much more, right in the palm of their hands.”
By all accounts Jwaala is an efficient and cutting edge company, and a potentially ideal partner for those small and medium-sized banks ready to make the leap in the social media arena.
But mobile tools and a streamlined set of services will only go so far. If your bank is one that has thrived on interpersonal relationships for years to build your business and customer base, it’s imperative you continue that trend across these new platforms and technologies. In a world going increasingly high-tech, you can’t afford to lose your “personal touch” appeal.
As such, it’s crucial you dedicate resources – both time, and “flesh-and-blood” voices – to engage with your customers across social networks. Having a Twitterfeed is a fantastic start, but using it as an automated newsfeed or another avenue for promoting press releases is a waste of a forum with much potential for personal interaction. You wouldn’t ask your bank tellers to answer customer questions with copies of your quarterly report or the latest “Letter from the CEO” – nor should you engage with people online in such an unengaging, impersonal manner.
Tool are a plus, but engagement is crucial. Not sure where to start? Drop me a line.
