The Greater Building Society is the first Australian building society to use Twitter as another way to communicate with its customers.

Head of customer service Lisa Presbury said that the Greater had been operating in the fast growing social media site for the past few weeks.

Ms Presbury said that Twitter provides an opportunity for the Greater to listen to people and to meet the needs of customers on their terms.

She said that followers of @GreaterBSociety will be able to ask questions of staff, provide feedback about the Greater’s products and services, as well as receive finance tips and the latest news from the Greater.

“Our Twitter followers will also be among the first to see our anticipated new Seinfeld commercials and behind the scenes footage from the making of those commercials,” Ms Presbury said.

She said that the new online services were an extension to the Greater’s branch network and call centre.

 “The growing popularity of social networking sites shows that some people prefer to “talk” to someone online these days,” she said.

“We pride ourselves on our high levels of customer service and Twitter is another way we can make doing business with the Greater as convenient as possible.”

“Sites like Twitter will not be important for many of our customers but they will become increasingly utilised by people so we want to make sure we are experienced in this space.”  

Earlier this year the Greater introduced “Live Chat” on its website. It allows people visiting the product pages of the site to open a secure chat window to ask questions of a Greater staff member in real time.

The Greater is revamping its existing Youtube channel (www.youtube.com.au/user/GreaterBuildingSoc), which has been used to show behind the scenes footage of its first series of Seinfeld commercials. A Facebook page and blog are also in the pipeline.

The Greater Building Society operates in regional NSW, the Queensland Gold Coast and in Townsville. It has an independently determined customer satisfaction rating of 95 percent. With some help from Jerry Seinfeld, the Greater is promoting itself as a better alternative to the major banks.

MEDIA ENQUIRIES:  Craig Eardley (Greater PR) on 0437 477 493.