family and friends, or traditional advertising, these younger cohorts are more likely to consult online review platforms, social media, and other digital channels to inform their banking decisions. This reliance on online reviews aligns with their preference for instant access to information and their comfort with leveraging digital resources for decision-making processes. With that mindset, where should banks focus on managing and tracking their ratings, scores and reputation across the web? The Right Platform Matters Consumers are looking for good products, good value and, importantly, good service. Using customer reviews to go comparison shopping is secondary nature now. Mobile searches for “bank near me” or “best CD account near me” immediately bring a user to an interactive Google Map with recommendations. Ensuring your bank or credit union is on that map and rated highly is essential to not only brand awareness but consideration for new business. In Rivel Banking Research’s study for the Financial Brand, consumers indicated that they rely on this top-level, Google Review framework 76% of the time when deciding on a new financial institution or banking product. While 37% of Baby Boomers are not using these Google Reviews, more than 70% of the other generations are. While the ubiquity of Google Reviews is its most important attribute, it’s also flexible for those willing to put in a little time and effort. Consumers can utilize readily available Google Reviews in a few different ways in their research journey, including checking star ratings, seeing locations, reading multiple reviews, looking at the most recent reviews, identifying common themes and evaluating the bank’s responses to complaints. However, not all platforms are relied upon the same. In Rivel’s research, over 40% of consumers have never heard of Bankrate, WalletHub or SmartAsset. Only the Better Business Bureau and YouTube have reliance scores equal to or above Google’s, positioning them to be great secondary resources for banks and credit unions. YouTube is being relied upon for over 50% of Gen Z and Millennials while the BBB is used by over 73% of Gen X and Boomers. According to research conducted at the Harvard Business School, consumers react most strongly when a review contains more information and is fully detailed. Additionally, for a site like Yelp, a one-star increase was found to lead to a 5-9 % percent increase in revenue. To improve visibility on review results, the key action banks should take is proactively requesting customer reviews. Although dissatisfied customers often voice their complaints on social media platforms, satisfied customers rarely leave positive reviews unless explicitly prompted by the bank to do so. 2 PLATFORM USAGE BEYOND GOOGLE REVIEWS More than Google Reviews Equal to Google Reviews BBB YouTube Yelp CFPB Nerd Wallet Reddit Facebook Bankrate WalletHub Smart Asset Colorado Banker 12
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTg3NDExNQ==