A Tale of Two Banks

By focusing on Facebook as an emerging social media (SM) customer services channel, this research provides an insight into social media service encounters. Data were collected from the Facebook pages of two British banks. Evidence is presented on the discrepancy between what customers expected of SM and what banks were prepared to offer, a discrepancy which resulted in customer frustration. The findings also demonstrate that, apart from banking regulation, a bank’s own SM policies and the training and empowerment of its staff are likely to impact on the quality of firm-customer interactions on SM. It is challenging for financial institutions to develop strategies to address customer queries satisfactorily on their SM pages and at the same time to work within the rules of compliance regulations. Moreover, many customers who put up a complaint on SM are observed to have developed rather negative feelings about their banks and to have lost their trust, suggesting a lack of clarity about the limited role of banks’ Facebook channel among customers.