You might be tempted to think: “Hey, I work for a bank, not a a fast food chain, so what’s the worst that could happen?”

Then consider the case of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania-based Metro Bank, whose recent name change (from Commerce Bank) sparked a chain reaction of failures and public complaints. The mishaps allegedly included mistaken overdrafts, ATM cards canceled without notice, a Web site that crashed due to high traffic and call-center wait times in excess of 45 minutes.

The incident prompted the blogger floor9.com to post a scathing rant about his experience. In the days that followed dozens of disgruntled customers posted comments.

The highlight, however, is the comment posted by “Shannon,” who claimed to be a Metro Bank employee. After offering a tepid defense of the bank, which drew angry replies from other commenters, Shannon lost her cool:

“Everyone ”F” off!!! I am sure they still have all of their GOOD customers!!!”

The popular Consumerist blog soon picked up on the story, which, as PR professionals know, virtually guarantees that the story will persist and be amplified by other blogs and larger media outlets.

As of this writing, the Consumerist story shows up in the #7 slot on a Google search for “Metro Bank.” A search of “Metro Bank”+Harrisburg fares worse, with the floor9.com blog posting coming up in the #1 position.

If it is indeed true, the comment left by an anonymous poster on the floor9 blog is probably the most enlightening, as it describes an organization that is in the throes of chaos:

“Well everyone, I am another one of those Metro Bank employees. I will tell (you) right now. We have no clue what is going on with our own bank.

I can’t even explain how much it hurts going into work. We all want to leave. I know..you dont want to hear this from an employee..but seriously back office has no damn clue.

Don’t worry…if you cant see your balance…neither can I. I have no idea how much money I have…as well as all the other employees of the bank. …neither does one of the Regional Presidents of the bank it turns out.

the poor tellers..I cant even feel their pain. they are getting literally yelled at by everyone…and they make NOTHING!..literally, I hired many.”

While we can’t verify any of the above information, it should serve as an object lesson for bankers who are contemplating transitions of any kind, whether it’s a brand-name change or the switchover of a back-end system.

In the end, it’s impossible for any bank to avoid the kinds of errors or system glitches that might cause the website or other back-end systems to fail. Mistakes happen. But what can be avoided is the kind of total information blackout that appears to have consumed Metro Bank employees as they tried to help customers cope with a difficult situation.

Employee communications has always been the linchpin of successful retail marketing. The best marketers work very hard to make sure that employees are aware of, understand and enthusiastically carry out campaigns at the local level.

Clearly, employee communications are also critical as a means of averting or at least mitigating disaster. What if Metro Bank’s tellers and customer-service reps had known ahead of time about the coming transitions and system changes? Or, what if Metro Bank had a communications channel that ensured the fast dissemination of accurate information to employees as the problems unfolded?

To be fair, even well-informed employees might not have been able to solve Metro Bank’s underlying problems any more quickly. But with good information — including plans for how to handle transition issues — they might have been able to help customers cope better and keep customers like floor9 from creating a PR nightmare.

Update:
Here is a list of top customer service/consumer advocacy blogs. Note that the Consumerist ranks at the top. Definitely not a site where you want to discover an expose about your brand!

As as a token of thanks for helping us “broadast” the webinar, we’ll send you a copy of Paco Underhill’s book, “Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping.” We’ll also be sure to point our readers and followers to about your coverage.

If you plan on covering the event, please:

• Let us know.
• Let your readers/followers know beforehand. Some might want to attend and also follow your comments.
• Use the hashtag #DSFORBANKS, so we can follow you as well.

Thanks in advance for your help. If you have any questions or ideas, please let us know via email, comments to this post or Twitter!

As best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell explains in his TED Talk below, Moskowitz revolutionized the U.S. food industry in the 1970s by studying consumers’ reactions to 45 different styles of spaghetti sauce. What he discovered was a revelation and something that focus groups had never revealed — a third of the public actually wanted chunky style spaghetti sauce, a product that did not exist at the time. With this information in hand, the Prego brand decided to give consumers what they wanted but had never verbalized. In doing so, they became the market leader.

So, what are your customers craving but don’t know and are unable to tell you?

Even if you don’t market on the Web, you can use the Web to learn more about what your customers want and what they think of your bank. And you can use this data to inform your marketing plans and even the wording you use within your marketing content. Best of all, unlike real focus groups, these research tools won’t cost you a dime.

If you use Google for searches, then you’re probably familiar with the “sponsored links” that show up at the top and in the right column of the search results page. These are ads that are purchased by advertisers and appear based on the words you entered into your search.

What’s hot on the Web could be hot in your branch
Google provides these advertisers with its Keyword Tool, which allows them (and you!) to find out which topics are currently hot with consumers. Type in “mortgage” and see how many searches are being conducted on the word mortgage and any phrases that include the word mortgage. To see how popular a keyword is in your region, just add your locality (e.g., Boston + mortgage).

Below is a list showing the number of searches that were conducted for different bank-related searches in March of 2009. Do you see anything surprising in this list? Does it make you wonder what kind of promotion you could do that involves mortgage calculators?

Bank related Google searches, March 2009

Google offers some other market-research tools that you might find helpful:

• Google Trends – Enter a keyword and see a graph of its historical popularity to present, as well as key news events that have affected search volume.
• Google Hot Trends – An up-to-the-minute rundown of the world’s most popular searches. Click any term in the list for historical search data.
• Google Insights for Search – Similar to Google Trends, this tool lets you narrow your search by region, time period, category and other criteria. This tool would be handy for a marketer who works across multiple states. Did you notice in the table above how popular the keyword “mortgage calculator” is? Using Google Insights, you can get granular, as in this example, which shows that for the last 90 days, people in Helena, Montana, and Bend, Oregon have conducted the most searches on this keyword.
• Google Zeitgeist - At the end of each year, Google compiles its search data to determine what were the most popular searches worldwide and in each country. Other trend fast-rising search trends. For example, look how the term “Layaway” skyrocketed in popularity last year.

Next installment: Using Twitter and social media to fuel your offline marketing

Kevin has posted a pretty thorough synopsis of the roundtable discussion with George Stephanopolous, Tucker Carlson and Katty Kay.

Come to think of it, Kevin also summarized Colin Powell’s talk quite nicely.

• Video interviews with journalists, executives, bloggers and conference-goers. We’ll be asking them about the state of banking and what specific advice they have for retail banks in 2009.
• Commentary and coverage of conference and expo happenings, innovative ideas, cool booths and more.

Going to the show?
Visit us at Booth 557. We’d love to interview you and get your thoughts on the future of retail banking.

Do you Twitter?
We’ll be posting live tweets on interviews and other coverage: @JohnRyanGlobal