How the UK’s Digital Challenger Banks Perform for Customer Service on Twitter
Since the global financial crisis 10 years ago, the banking sector has suffered a complete breakdown in its relationships with the public. Out of the desolate remains there have been a number of ‘digital challengers’ that have risen from the ashes with a bold new outlook to put the power (literally) back in the hands of the consumer.
So what is a ‘digital’ challenger bank?
The ‘digital challengers’ are a new breed of emerging digital-only banks that offer banking that can’t be found on the high street, but instead on your phone. These young, ambitious startups have raised significant capital from investors, acquired some of the best talent across the industry and are redefining the traditional approach to financial services by focusing on creating lean, accessible financial products and improved customer service aimed at serving a new generation of digitally native consumers and converts.
For this second edition of our two-part series on UK’s banking sector, we take a close look at how the teams at Monzo, Starling Bank, AtomHelp and Tandem respond to their customers publicly on Twitter.
U.K’s ‘Digital Challenger’ Banks Customer Service Performance on Twitter
Best Overall Performers
Monzo came out on top as the best overall providers of customer service with the best aggregate score* across inbound volume, response rate, responses under 30 mins and sentiment amongst customers.
Track the UK’s Digital Challenger Banks on HelpHandles.com
*Accounts are programmatically scored out of 100 on our performance index across four metrics. Inbound mention volumes (25%), Response Rate (25%), Responses under 30 mins (25%) and Sentiment (25%). All metrics are available and updated every hour on HelpHandles.com1st: Monzo
2nd: Starling Bank
3rd: Atom Help
4th: Tandem
Below is the break down on how each bank performed for customer service on Twitter.
Inbound Volumes
Monzo were the busiest digital challenger on Twitter with 4,000 mentions received during the month of April 2018, while Starling Bank received 1,757, Atom Help received the fewest mentions.
- Monzo (4,000)
- Starling (1,757)
- Tandem (127)
- AtomHelp (21)
Response Rate
Response rates were in the lower percentile of help handles on Twitter with Atom Help the most responsive to customers performing above average with 76% of mentions responded to, followed by Monzo with 42% share of responses, Starling Bank 28% of responses and lastly Tandem with 22% of responses replied to on Twitter.
- Atom Help (76%)
- Monzo (42%)
- Starling Bank (28%)
- Tandem (22%)
Responses under 30mins
AtomHelp were the outstanding performer responding to 100% of inbound mentions to their help handle inside our 30 min benchmark. They were followed by Monzo and Starling who both had a lower than average 30% of mentions responded to, with Tandem coming in way outside with a no score.
- AtomHelp (93%)
- Starling Bank (66%)
- Monzo (54%)
- Tandem (34%)
Sentiment
Over the month of April 2018, sentiment towards the digital challengers was in the top 30% of sentiment towards brands on HelpHandles. We noticed many of the digital challengers were receiving positive mentions from customers who were taking to Twitter to voice their delight with mostly positive experiences with their new banking apps. To amplify this, Monzo used a dedicated account @MonzoLoveTweets to spread the love from their promoters on Twitter.
Conclusion
With traditional banks failing to truly understand the principles of delivering digital services in today’s shifting consumer landscape and stumbling to transform their legacy services to retain customers — now is the time for the digital challengers to step up and show us what they are made of in what is now becoming a truly disruptive market.
