Banks are the “most liked” industry in SA.
No, that’s not a joke, it’s the conclusion DataEQ’s analysts drew from tracking more than four-million social media posts about African Bank, Absa, Capitec, Discovery Bank, FNB, Nedbank, Standard Bank and TymeBank between September last year and the end of August 2022.
The company, formerly known as BrandsEye, has produced its annual SA Banking Sentiment Index for the past seven years, and this year local banks have moved into net positive territory of social media sentiment for the first time, overtaking insurers and retailers.
“Having followed an upward post-pandemic trajectory, the banking industry’s net sentiment improved most significantly over the past year, shooting up from -7.5% in 2021 to 9.4% in 2022,” said Sarah Lamb, head of client service at DataEQ.
“This sharp improvement saw banks climb to first place in the cross-industry net sentiment comparison, suggesting South Africans had a generally better experience with their banks than local retailers, insurers and telcos.”
Those four-million posts put FNB at the top of the most-liked bank list, followed by Absa, thanks in large part to the fact that both banks embarked on social media campaigns which solicited positive comments from their clients.
“Campaigns run by some of the banks, most notably Absa (#WeDoMoreWednesdays) and FNB (the #LoveFNB campaign), incentivised consumers to speak positively about certain products and services offered by the banks,” the analysts found.
“This flooded their operational net sentiment and, to some degree, affected the level of customer service the banks could provide.
“This is a clear example of how campaigns cannot only be used to boost reputational sentiment but operational sentiment too,” DataEQ said.
All the banks, apart from Capitec have trended upwards in net sentiment since 2018.
By actively using the channel to entice consumers to focus more on the positive things they are doing operationally, banks are essentially flipping the script and taking control of their social media narrative.
— DataEQ
Interestingly, when excluding social media campaigns, Absa and FNB drop in overall rankings. Absa shows a 58.4 percentage point drop to second-last, just ahead of Standard Bank.
While campaigns and service improvements drove positive conversation, the spikes in negative conversation were largely due to viral incidents and system downtime.
This was particularly true for Capitec, which was involved in two viral incidents, both relating to perceptions of safety at bank branches.
In March 2022, social media conversations about Standard Bank, Absa, FNB and Capitec shot up, mostly notably in Standard Bank’s case, the bank being more frequently mentioned in the TransUnion hack involving extortion of R224m.
“Plus, there was inter-bank transfer friction between Capitec and Standard Bank, with Capitec claiming transfers to Capitec clients from Standard Bank were not processed due to technical issues on Standard Bank’s side,” DataEQ said.
Then in August, Capitec experienced significant downtime in the first week of the month, at a time when many of its customers were trying to transact.
This triggered huge spike in conversation, which was predominantly negative.
In its conclusion, DataEQ said 2022 had seen a new, more positive era of social media conversation towards SA banks.
DataEQ said in large part, the sector has a handful of successful and cleverly-crafted social campaigns to thank for its first-ever net positive score, but improved customer experience has also played a key role in this feat.
“By actively using the channel to entice consumers to focus more on the positive things they are doing operationally, banks are essentially flipping the script and taking control of their social media narrative.”
But those millions of posts revealed that despite the “experiential strides made by the industry”, general customer service remained a major pain point in consumer complaints.
“Slow and low responsiveness — on both social media and traditional channels — was a common theme in these complaints, as consumers struggled to get hold of their banks.
“Digital downtime was a major obstacle in this regard, impacting the industry negatively and eroding consumer confidence in banks.”
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