When Brett King speaks, HSBC listens. Eventually.

Author and CEO of bank startup Moven Brett King was surprised to find that his HSBC business account had been closed without warning on the Friday following Thanksgiving. He took to the phone, then to Twitter, where the incident caught the attention of industry watchers. His Huffington Post article and subsequent posts on Bank Innovation (“My Social Media Brawl with HSBC“) and elsewhere generated interest in what HSBC was doing to its small business customers — which, it turned out, was shutting down accounts that failed to meet certain undisclosed thresholds.

King yesterday posted an update on the Bank Innovation post calling for HSBC’s charter to be revoked, which indicated that HSBC had reinstated his account after a “strategic review” and taken the following additonal steps as a result of the uproar:

1. HSBC is allowing small-business customers to reinstate their account until Jan. 10 in order to have the time to open a new account;
2. HSBC’s call center has a revised the procedures it has in place; and
3. Mark Luppi, HSBC’s head of business banking, has sent emails to affected customers informing them of their options.

While King’s business banking account was (wisely) reinstated permanently, other customers have at least gained time to evaluate options, and the bank will help with the process. The call center, which at least spoke to King while the bank’s social media channels were silent, failed to handle the situation properly, and it was only King’s thorough knowledge of HSBC’s systems that allowed him to win his way through to agents empowered to help him.

King’s efforts prompted the bank to update its procedures at the call center, and it would also be a good idea for HSBC to re-examine its social media protocols, which failed to raise a response to King’s pleadings. The bank doesn’t “use social media that way,” King tweeted that he was told.

“I count it a success that we did get these concessions or process changes from HSBC as a result of our combined action as a community,” King wrote on Bank Innovation. “While some may say that it’s all well and good that I got my account re-opened, the real victory here is that HSBC admitted they had some real customer service process issues and moved to rectify those problems — as a direct result of our combined action and social media noise.”

It is noteworthy, of course, that the individual calling for attention was Brett King, a financial services celebrity with knowledge of the workings of the bank in question and a large ad supportive social media following. Another customer might not have been so successful, and indeed, King’s account is permanently reinstated, while others will still need to switch banks. It’s also notable that HSBC’s social media channels played no role in the process. At the time of this posting, King still had not gotten a response to his tweets.