TD Canada Trust (TD) is one of Canada’s largest banks and is arguably one of the first banks to utilize social media to further develop their business. I have always been with TD since I moved here 3 years ago simply because it was convenient, as my dad had been with TD for a very long time. Until recently, I personally found it peculiar to be strongly attached to one bank, especially for students like me. I may not speak for all students, but most of us – if not all – would quickly switch to a different bank given that there are better offers and possibly costs less. My view on this changed when I unexpectedly experienced great customer service from TD.

I pay for my credit card bills and have always paid for them ahead of time. However, there was this one month that I failed to pay them on time. Once I realized I was already 2 days late, I paid my bills online right away. Even if I paid for it, I knew there were some penalties involved for late payment, such as interests added to my next bill. I wanted to know what the exact interest rate will be placed on my account, so I called TD. In my conversation with a customer representative, I merely asked what the penalties are for late credit card payments. The representative provided me the answer I needed, but before I could thank the representative for the information, he quickly added that my late payment fees for this incident will be waived. He said that since I have a good record of paying my bills on time, waiving the fee (only for this time) is justified. As a student with limited amount of financial resources, I was very grateful and frankly did not initially see the logic behind the representative’s extra effort in pleasing me. Nonetheless, I immediately posted on my Twitter account of my experience with TD and got a quick response from their Twitter account, as shown below.

Relating this back to eMarketing, TD has been using Twitter very extensively to further provide customer service for at least a couple of years now. If you visit their Twitter account, you can see TD initiates a lot of interaction with unsatisfied customers, even the ones that did not specifically tag TD’s Twitter handle. Some – if not many – of these unsatisfied customers turn into satisfied customers as their concerns have been fixed through interaction in social media. Based on observation, consumers tend to express their negative views on certain corporations through social media. Tapping on Twitter provides many opportunities for TD to potentially increase their customer base and ultimately become a competitive advantage. Currently, I do not see any other big banks, such as RBC and Scotiabanks, utilizing Twitter to further reach their consumer markets and provide customer service.

Referring back to our class discussion on Solis “Engage” book,  it is wise of TD to be investing some of their resources in social media now than later. The book mentions that it is not optimal to only create a social media plan when a crisis is already happening as this will prove to be already too late. One has to start early and invest time in cultivating relationships with customers now even without any crisis happening, as these customers will prove to be invaluable resources as advocates in the future. With TD currently ahead of recognizing and maximizing the benefits of social media, they can be more confident than any other banks in Canada that they can count on their customer base to be their supporters in unpleasant situations.