Transparency is the ugly duckling of Web 2.0. It's not as sexy for issuers as the idea of
participation, dialogue and
viral campaigns, and doesn't have the immediate appeal of an
enriched user experience — ploughing hundreds of thousands of dollars, pounds or euros into the latest technologies to make a cards site the best thing since sliced bread. In fact, it may not have even registered on an issuer's radar.
But in fact, transparency is closer to
what Web 2.0 is all about than dialogue, participation, virals and usability put together. That's because transparency is a synonym of trust, which is integral to Web 2.0. 'Transparency marketing', you could say, is the way a company builds such trust and markets that trust to acquire new customers, in this case, new cardholders.
The only catch, and this is one that most issuers will find difficult to stomach, is that to be transparent you've
got to take risks, you've got to turn the traditional approach to brands and marketing on its head. As an issuer, you've got to lay yourself bare, relinquish control and accept public criticism — publicly. But if you can do
that, and survive – and you
will survive if you make the necessary efforts – the benefits to your brand can be extraordinary.
So how might transparency marketing look in practice?
For issuers, transparency marketing is about allowing cardholders to feed back. "Hmmm, nothing new there", you say. The difference is that it's about allowing your cardholders to voice their thoughts, gripes, criticisms and questions in real time, in a public forum — namely on your website. It's about issuers allowing their cardholders, every single one of them, to see them naked, warts and all, as they respond and react to what other cardholders are asking, and expect, of them. It's dialogue, yes, but it's raw and, barring extremes, uncensored dialogue. It's authentic and it's real.
Inevitably, in a public forum, companies will receive criticism and negative comments, but if they respond to this criticism in a proactive and positive manner – on the same public thread – they'll create far more trust.
It's impossible for any issuer, any company, to get things right all the time, but if they always set out to put things right, customers will trust them much, much more. Good intentions are worth infinitely more than good service and a good product. Because any issuer can provide that — it's impossible to differentiate in that space. The important thing is to
want to provide the best service. Now that's something people will relate, and respond, to.