Transforming financial services: Silicon Valley entrepreneurs at Hearsay Social Innovation Summit

Today, Hearsay Social is hosting its inaugural Innovation Summit for financial industry leaders.  The event brings together experts across fields to explore the rapidly changing technology landscape available to financial institutions. With the growing availability of social sales productivity tools, organizations cannot afford to be behind the curve.

After an opening fireside chat with Sallie Krawcheck, the afternoon continued with a panel featuring startup leaders transforming financial services; CreditKarma CEO Kenneth Lin, WePay CEO Bill Clerico, Trizic CEO Brad Matthews, and Simple CEO Josh Reich joined TechCrunch Senior Editor Leena Rao and Managing Director Chris Andrews from Northwestern Mutual for the discussion. The group of startup CEOs spoke to how their deep industry experience helped them build more consumer-centric organizations in the social era.

“The key to any successful program is to focus on the customer first,” according to Lin.
The panel viewed social media as a highly productive paradigm for financial organizations because the networks provide a critical opportunity for connecting employees with customers to alleviate corporate distrust.
“Financial services carry a lot of tension and anxiety,” said Reich. “We knew there would be times when people were frustrated. Consumers don’t like interacting with the brand, they do much better with people they know.”
From a marketing perspective, the ability to target and tailor messages to customers on social networks is invaluable.
“Stop spamming with traditional emails,” urged Clerico. “Engage your customers and prospects on social media. Don’t just broadcast a message; listen to your customers, and understand what their needs are.”
Echoing some of Krawcheck’s points earlier, Andrews emphasized the role of technology in scaling advisors’ networks and relationships with customers.
“The old-school approach of talking at people is not the best,” he said. “I spend my time managing relationships on social and directly reaching out to clients. When I get to annual review time, I can use Facebook to stay up-to-date on what’s been going on.”
Customer service also plays a role in many of these organization’s social strategies.
“There are TVs with Twitter feeds all around the office,” explained Clerico. “When there’s an angry customer, everyone knows about it. This is how to build a company with a culture that supports making the customer happy.”

Watching @i2pi of @Simplify speak on the@HearsaySocial panel. Rep PDX #HSSInnovation

— RaceJohnson (@RaceJohnson) February 27, 2013

You can convert your angriest customers into believers in the business through social media @billclerico #HSSInnovation

— Hearsay Systems (@HearsaySystems) February 27, 2013