How Santander UK anchors the customer experience in social media

“We had numerous challenges when we decided to venture down this path,” CMO Keith Moor said. “There were very few people, particularly at the senior level, who understood the higher purpose of social. So the first thing we had to do was take people on a knowledge journey.”

The second challenge was figuring out which social platforms Santander wanted to own. With 21+ social networks at their disposal, it wasn’t a question of quantity, but quality. They knew that once they committed to a channel, and built out that audience, it was their duty to sustain those relationships.

That led to the third challenge: how to manage it all. Moor and his team had to think critically about tackling the plethora of channels, the influx of customer interactions, and the obstacles unique to Santander. “There are certain challenges you face when you take on social as a bank, and one of these is to deal with compliance and regulatory issues,” said Moor. “Organizations like ours have grown up developing processes and procedures that deal very well with static mechanisms. Social, however, is a very dynamic and unpredictable mechanism.”

Santander needed a customer-first solution that would:

• Establish social media as the foundation for customer experience
• Empower the social team to drive and orchestrate customer experience

Establishing social media as the foundation for customer experience: The Santander team made the decision to invest in the most complete social media management platform for the enterprise. Sprinklr gave Santander the safety and compliance it needed as a bank. It had robust workflows to facilitate seamless cross-team collaboration. But most importantly, Sprinklr gave Santander a holistic view of its 14 million customers.

Empowering the social team to drive and orchestrate customer experience: “Sprinklr gives us a single view of our customers. It helps us understand what our customers are saying, not only on social media but across the web,” said Andy Freeman, head of Santander’s social media program. “These insights reveal where we need to focus our resources, to make sure we can be there for our customers when they need help.”

Over the past year, the brand has reached more than 100 million people, resulting in more than 1.5 million engagements. But it’s more than just X, formerly Twitter conversations, posts on Facebook and engagements on LinkedIn. Santander has been able to leverage social to deliver a new level of service to its customers. “We deliver valuable tools to help people understand everything from what it’s like to be a first-time customer, to helpful products and services someone might want, to larger issues around fraud and theft protection,” said Chris Parker, Senior Social Media Manager. “We’re using social to reach our customers on the channels of their choice, to engage with them more deeply, and to help our customers more intuitively.”

Building a bridge between customer care and marketing: Santander has broken down the silos between marketing and customer care — together, they develop response strategies, maneuver tricky situations, and turn insights into action.

Extending that bridge to other parts of the business (and beyond): Santander invites teams from across the business to collaborate. “For example, our compliance teams will come in for sessions on our social strategy, collaborate with us, and come away feeling comfortable with the work we’re doing,” Freeman said. The social team also extends this collaboration to schools and other groups outside the company.

Using Sprinklr’s Unified-CXM platform, Santander is able to reach, engage, and listen to its customers, while elevating the importance of social across the business. The company now hears its customers with greater clarity, provides content that’s more relevant than ever and has the power to reach customers on their preferred channels.

It’s a bank that puts the customer first across every touchpoint, every time.