A few years ago, a consumer walking around in a hurricane in search of a working ATM would have relied on luck and word of mouth. That was before Twitter.
"Bracing Irene to walk to Boylston, where are the ATMs?" a TD Bank customer in Boston Tweeted this weekend.
Moments later, the bank responded with the web address of a mobile site that showed active ATM locations.
The simple exchange shows the power of new technologies such as mobile devices and social media to keep customer-facing operations up and running during a disaster.
Banks can use social networks and mobile banking platforms to connect staff in safe locations with customers in areas affected by a storm like Hurricane Irene, or another adverse event that knocks out the consumer's power or disables the bank's local branch or ATM.
Mobile and social media "provide more ways to communicate," says Sean Kevelighan, head of consumer communications for Citigroup. Inc.
The company used social media sites to announce closures of some branches in the New York area over the weekend, as well as to send updates as the storm progressed on Saturday and Sunday.
Other Tweets to TD Bank, whose branch footprint includes most of Irene's path, included queries on disabled check deposit services at an ATM in Silver Spring, Md., and the status of a temporarily closed store in Edgewater, N.J.
TD Bank says that beyond some limited power outages, it was "business as usual" at the bank. But for consumers who may not have immediately known that, mobile phones and social media sites allowed the bank to quickly disseminate information to people who were away from their homes — or in places where the electricity was shut off — without burdening call centers.
"We encouraged them to use our mobile apps to locate stores and ATMs near them so they could call for hours, opening information or locate additional stores in their area, or visit us" on the web, says Rebecca Acevedo, a bank spokeswoman. "We also instructed customers to follow us on Twitter."
The questions mostly focused on branch status, ATMs, and hours, Acevedo says.
"People were seeking us out," she says, adding that it's hard to measure an increase in social media activity since many other customers would have asked the bank the same questions had it not broadcast the answers on Twitter.
Advancements in targeted email also allowed for targeted communications.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. used its database to tailor email blasts according to location, notifying customers in the New York area about waived ATM fees and early branch closures this past weekend, says Tom Kelly, a spokesman.
"Instead of emailing broadly to people all over the country, we were able to notify the people who were impacted in the local market."
Marc DeCastro, a research director for IDC Financial Insights, says the use of Twitter and mobile to deliver information is an advance, but there is still room for more innovation when using mobile and web technology for business continuity purposes.
"It sounds good, and I'm glad the banks are thinking bout it," he says, but Twitter is a "manned" station in which a consumer has to contact a person and wait for a response. "That's as opposed to a geolocation device, which gives you the status of an ATM, with a green light or a red light where you an see if the ATM is operable. That's a better use of the technology."
