Isabelle Conner, head of global marketing for ING, started by recounting the woes of the financial services sector. Customers' opinion of the entire industry was weak even before the financial crisis, and now the challenge is greater than ever.
How is ING planning to recover and stand above the crowd? She described her strategy for making the customer experience "Easier." ING's Easier strategy is all about building trust with customers. It has five pillars:
1. Easy to Contact
2. Fast and Efficient
3. Clear Overview
4. Transparent
5. Professional Advice
As she described it, these 5 pillars represent elements of both "service" and "trust" in the brand. The goal is create experiences that follow these 5 key elements, which come up time and again when customers describe the experience they want to get from ING.
Where are they on their Net Promoter journey?
ING has chosen NPS as the customer outcome measure for progress on the Easier strategy. INGs own consumer research shows that customers trust friends and family first for advice, followed by social networks and opinions of other consumers. Advertising comes at the end of the list. Based on this, it is clear that Word of Mouth based on real customer experience is the path to take, and NPS is a good fit for this.
Their initial push is to launch and tune the process in two key countries/markets. She selected the markets to include one key market in their insurance business, and one in banking. What the two have in common is strong leadership, who are ready and eager to make change happen. The goal of the pilot is to develop internal Promoters, to support the next phase of change throughout an organisation with over 100,000 employees around the world.
Her presentation led to a question from the audience about how to effectively drive adoption of change in highly concensus-driven companies. Isabelle came back to the question of leadership first. The CEOs of the two pilot countries have a reputation for successful change. She described them as "revolutionaries." Secondly, she added that it is important to invest time behind the scenes with leaders around the organisation. She has already run 47 workshops around the "Easier" strategy with management teams within ING globally. And her work has just begun.
