Case Study: Social Media Marketing Strategy @ JPMorgan Chase – Customer Service & Relationship Management on Twitter

JPMorgan Chase, United States biggest bank has been actively using Twitter majorly for customer service as the bank's customer-service team responded to complaints, queries and also offered solutions to the problems and redressed the customer grievances. J.P. Morgan's customer-service account alone has more than 26,000 followers on Twitter and has sent more than 90,000 tweets since its inception. “A lot of people think that Twitter is a fad and you can’t really use it effectively to talk to customers,” Bianca Buckridee, a VP of social media with JP Morgan Chase told a recent panel discussion, according to a report by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton business school. Buckridee’s team responds directly to questions, using personalized accounts with photos attached – making for a more intimate connection with JP Morgan Chase staff. In November 2013, JPMorgan tried to conduct an online discussion with one of its executives by asking questions via the Twitter hashtag "#AskJPM" and was forced to cancel the even within six hours as Twitter users tweeted hundreds of messages for the event that were either jokes or negative questions about the company's business practices. The planned Q&A was quickly aborted. "Tomorrow's Q&A is canceled. Bad idea. Back to the drawing board," the bank tweeted. JPMorgan Chase also uses its twitter account to also provide the news, policy changes and also information about bank’s product and service offerings.

In January 2014, JPMorgan Chase promoted Kristin Lemkau to chief marketing officer who announced her plans to build out the bank's online digital marketing capabilities and also rework the bank’s social media presence that took beating due to the twitter fiasco. In an interview with American Banker, Kristin Lemkau said, "If you look at our digitally owned channels, we just don't have as rich a strategy as some of our competitors do," she added, citing the company's lack of a main Facebook page and room for improvement with its website. She feels the bank needs to talk more about the good things it is doing on various social networking sites so as to improve its social media reputation. Mobile phones are another area where Lemkau is hoping to "find better ways frankly of reaching our customers." Despite many challenges and regulatory issues Banks have to increase their presence and consumer engagement significantly as the customers are actively engaging g on various social media platforms and networking sites and address the grievances and also provide the necessary information related to policy changes, rules, regulations and products and services. To further strengthen its efforts JPMorgan Chase recruited Susan Canavari as Chief Brand Officer for Chase for leading strategy and development for the consumer brand, including advertising, creative services and social media marketing and reports to Kristin Lemkau, the firm’s Chief Marketing Officer. JPMorgan Chase is not only looking at social media as way of engaging with customers but also use the data on various social networking sites to further improve the bank’s product and service offerings.