real engagement: rbc online banking

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Engaging Clients with Comment Engine:The Importance of Transparency

RBC Royal Bank Online Banking- Ratings and Reviews -

Jeff GrovestineSenior Manager Online Strategy & Client Experience

Royal Bank of Canada

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Royal Bank of Canada

• Royal Bank of Canada, and subsidiaries, operate under the name RBC

• Canada's largest bank, one of North America's leading diversified financial services companies and among the largest banks in the world

• Personal and commercial banking, wealth management services, insurance, corporate and investment banking and transaction processing services

• 80,000 full- and part-time employees• 18 million personal, business, public sector and institutional clients• Offices in Canada, the U.S. and 52 other countries• Over 5 million clients enrolled in RBC Royal Bank Online Banking

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• Increase online banking enrolments and number of active clients• First step towards multimedia approach to engage clients• Client centric approach – a breakthrough in becoming more like a

retailer in the online world• Continue to build confidence in online banking – around for more

than 10 years• Previously conducted proprietary and 3rd party surveys• Other more recent forays into online social media included P2P –

students blogging• Successful use of Comment Engine with internal audiences

Why Ratings and Reviews?

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Asking our Clients What They Think…

• In November 2008, launched Online Banking Ratings and Reviews using Comment Engine

• Clients rate the overall online banking service and submit comments via the RBC Royal Bank public website

• Existing Online Banking clients, non-Online Banking clients and prospects visiting our public website can view an overall rating and a list of verbatim comments submitted by actual users of the service – the good, the bad and the ugly

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Online Banking Homepage on RBC.com

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Direct Connection with Online Banking Sign-In Page

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Online Banking Ratings & Reviews Page

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Launch

• Comments moderated• An in-house moderator responds

to client comments when there is a call to action in the review

• Clients very receptive right from the initial launch

• Within the first month over 500 comments

• Hits to the websites exceed 36,000

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Reactions

• Clients appreciate the opportunity to comment freely

• Transparency is key….there have been negative comments where the client says ‘I doubt you will publish this comment because it is not perfect’….won’t that client be surprised!

• Want to complete their transactional banking at the speed of light but take the time in their busy days to read weeks worth of comments and submit lengthy stories\wish lists or recommend other comments.

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Comment Totals

Status Total

Anonymous 410

Submitted 85

Approved 1,447

Unused 188

Grand Total 2,130

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Other Totals

Number of Ratings 3,167

Average Rating 4.05 / 5

Recommendations 1,058

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Language Stats

Language Comments

English 1,595 74.9%

French 535 25.1%

English75%

French25%

• Launched November 7, 2008

• Info as of April 9, 2009

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Managing Today and into the Future

• Turned on ‘Recommend’ feature in response to high volumes of comments submitted and a sense clients wished a more interactive tool

• More recently, added a question to comment page to ask, ‘Did this tool influence your decision to enrol in Online Banking?’

• Future consideration\contemplate• Allow clients to provide replies to comments, however the challenge

will be finding the resources to moderate• Add to additional product & service pages throughout our public sites

• Use feedback to confirm our strategy to future enhancements & changes

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Is it a Success?

• Challenges • How do we measure success?• Volumes of comments to moderate?

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