Corporate Brand Burnishing 101: #Citi Sings For Lunch with Man-in-The-Mirror

As reported in the WSJ weekend edition, what better way for Citibank to burnish its brand and show its humanity than to have its London-based bankers and traders perform their acoustical skills by singing a heart-rendering version of Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” on BBC’s hit competition TV show, “The Choir” ?

The Citibank Singers not only perform one of Michael Jackson’s best, but the performance by the CitiTroupe was apparently so compelling, clips from their performance are scheduled to be used in the opening of each segment of the show’s Season 2 (which premieres Mon Dec 2).

Ironically, BBC2′s website indicated that none of the promo clips for Season 2 were actually viewable online (yet), and as much as some might liken the snafu to less-than-customer-friendly experiences encountered when dealing with financial institutions (and/or with “healthcare.gov”), the clip to left offers great transparency (a quasi-popular phrase on Wall Street) i.e. the type of returns Citi staffers deliver when prompted to sing for their lunch.
For the full story, click here to be redirected and watch the clips, 

"System Update" is Major Banks' Euphemism for Being Hacked

Almost funny..after this blogger reported multiple incidences involving online banking issues (phishing, Identity Theft attempts, and erroneous charges on credit card) over past several days, and being told by bank 'customer service' staff the issues were merely related to "system updates", we're all reminded again that phrase is nothing more than a euphemism for "we've been hacked! (and that your account information was likely hijacked by perpetrators).

The intriguing part is that select politicians with nothing intelligent to say are attributing this week's cyberattacks on multiple banks to Iranian-backed trouble makers.

I guess the confirmation sent to me by Amazon for that $700 flat panel TV will actually be shipped to someplace in the middle east!

Citibank systems down for 2nd day- "Call Back When Our Systems Are Available"

Here's an update to yesterday's posting-

Citibank credit customers are experiencing a 2nd day in a row of "systems down" --those trying to telephone the customer service number displayed on their credit card, or the 'customer service' telephone number displayed on their various websites are being told after waiting on hold for upwards of 30 minutes "This is not customer service; if you want customer service, you need to call a different telephone number, but since all of our systems are down, you should wait until they are back up to phone.The real customer service telephone is 866-311-4975.."

Good fodder for those on the receiving end of collections team from Citibank; tell them that all of your systems are down and to call back when they are back up again..

Corporate Marketing/Communications 101: Customer Service is where the rubber meets the road; if you insist on failing to address major snafus in an intelligent manner,  remember the adage: the bigger they are, the harder they fall.