VIEWPOINT: Community Bank, Credit Union Strategies for Building Brand Reputation

Reputation is the cornerstone of trust in community banking, and it is essential for local banks and credit unions to maintain a positive, pristine reputation in their local communities. Here are a few ways to accomplish this critical goal: 1.​ Prioritize transparency and communication: Maintaining open communication with your community is vitally important, as it helps to establish and maintain credibility, trust, and engagement. These days, there are many ways to communicate with your members and customers, as well as the community at large. These channels include emailed newsletters, e-blasts, an active social-media presence, and even the occasional in-person community meeting (beyond the annual member or shareholder meeting). 2.​ Enhance the user experience: Look to offer personalized services to increase customer and member satisfaction and loyalty. One of our clients offers an online-giving platform that enables customers to give to their favorite charity. Customers can support their favorite cause by rounding up purchases made with their debit card. They can also donate to their favorite charity with one-time or recurring donations deducted as they specify from their account. 3.​ Train your staff/colleagues: It’s important to provide catered financial advice and remember customer or member names, birthdays, and preferences. When problems and complaints inevitably arise, make sure all employees are prepared to offer swift and empathetic resolution. Have documented systems and processes in place to handle such matters and elevate them, if necessary. A full and friendly resolution of a customer or member problem often strengthens the relationship and turns frustration into loyalty complete with positive word-of-mouth, social posts, and reviews. 4.​ Embrace digital transformation: Today, community financial institutions can ill-afford to ignore modern technology. Make sure you are offering user-friendly online and mobile-banking platforms to meet your customers’ or members’ evolving expectations. Also, with personal identity theft and data breaches on the rise, make sure to employ the latest robust security protocols to protect consumer data. Finally, educating your customers or members on fraud prevention is a win-win for all concerned. 5.​ Showcase community involvement in your marketing: As you participate in the community through charitable events, sponsorships, and staff participation in local organizations and events, make sure to highlight the stories of how your institution is positively impacting the community. Be the bank or credit union that “shows up” for the community. And then don’t be reticent about trumpeting these success stories through your social media, press releases, and website. As with all marketing initiatives, consistency goes a long way in customer/member loyalty and community engagement. Your efforts and actions should be fully aligned with your brand and organizational growth goals. Then audit your campaigns regularly across all channels — in-branch, website, social media, digital media, and traditional advertising — to ensure the brand is represented clearly and consistently. It’s also important to establish clear systems to gather and act upon customer, member, and community partner feedback. This will demonstrate responsiveness and a commitment to ongoing improvement, while also serving as a valuable feedback loop of how your messaging and activities are being received. Localized marketing and trust-building are essential to strengthening relationships and maintaining strong community ties. In these challenging times, focus on enhancing your current strategies to create a foundation of community engagement and trust for the long-term.            

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Steve Johnson is a managing partner at Riger Marketing Communications in Binghamton. Contact him at sdjohnson@riger.com.