Wells Fargo Invites Facebook Fans To Design its Stores [Banking Crowdsourcing]

Wells Fargo bank invites its facebook fans -and banking customers- to flag the innovative features they’d like to find in their stores design. Simple banking crowdsourcing in action.

As part of our Visible Banking Facebook Watch series, we track 1,200+ facebook pages from financial institutions based in over 80 countries, including Wells Fargo.

Last week, my team noticed a cover header update on the official Wells Fargo facebook page which now counts over 500,000 fans.

With ‘Let’s Talk About That‘, the US bank is currently inviting its banking customers and facebook fans to share their feedback and their suggestions on Wells Fargo’s banking channels, products and services.

SEE ALSO

• The Lab: AIB Bank Opens First Digital Banking Store [Innovation]
• The World’s Most Innovative Bank Taps Peer-To-Peer, Crowdsourcing, Social Media [VIDEO]
• RBS Banks On Open Banking Innovation With Ideas Bank [Crowdsourcing]

Here, I would like to point out a facebook wall post on banking branch design innovation: ‘Let’s Talk About That: You’re the designer. What features or functions do you like at Wells Fargo stores? What would you like to see added? Let us know.‘

Ten days after publication, on 27th April, the wall post counts 72 fan comments and only two comments from the Wells Fargo team.

With this article, I was keen to emphasize that every financial institution, big or small, should start tapping social media asap to not only change brand perception and build trusted relationships, but also invite their customers to help them improve their organization.

This example from Wells Fargo demonstrates that you don’t necessarily need a huge budget or to build an ideas bank a la first direct or Commonwealth Bank to start crowdsourcing innovation at your organization.

Start simple.  Leverage the basic communication features available on the most popular social media channels likes facebook, twitter, youtube or linkedin.  Think about launching a blog.

Food for thought: it is one thing to capture the voice of the customer (VOC), you need to leverage that information and demonstrate to your customers you care and act on it.

How much do you involve your customers in your strategy?  Have you started to co-create products and services with them?  I invite you to share your comments and best practices on crowdsourcing in financial services here or on twitter.