CC-I3: ING Insurance: the Journey towards Customer-Centricity

ING Insurance: the Journey towards

Customer-Centricity

Customer-Centric Innovations, Inspirations and Insights

December 2013, Issue 01

Seen through the eyes of its people

We want to take a leading role in the insurance industry. We want to be the ones making it better: customer-centric and sustainable.

DAVID KNIBBE, CEO, ING INSURANCE INTERNATIONAL

T hat’s what David Knibbe, CEO of ING Insurance International asked me when I sat down to interview him for this first issue of CC-I3. His question caught me a bit off guard, so I hesitated, but having thought about it, the

answer is a resounding Yes! As long as there are new stories to be told, there is a need for media to tell them. And customer-centricity has a million untold tales.

Sure, mainstream media talk about customer-centricity often enough, but they recycle the same old theories, rehash the same old examples. I mean – am I the only one fed up of hearing how great Apple is? For me, the best stories don’t come from the Zappos/Amazon PR department. They come from the real world, where life isn’t perfect. Where customer-centricity is a vision that can only be achieved through hard work, persistence and dedication.

CC-I3 (Customer-Centric Innovations, Inspirations and Insights) is an experiment in bringing you these stories. It’s not yet committed to a fixed publishing schedule or format, but every issue will bring you a new story from the land of customer-centricity. Some stories will focus on a company, others on a topic or geographic region. Each time we’ll bring you fresh angles to inspire you on your own journey towards your customers.

This first issue features ING Insurance International’s journey to customer-centricity. Operating in an industry whose reputation is all but shattered, this company isn’t settling for the goal of becoming Europe’s most customer-centric insurer. In the words of its CEO (page 6), ING wants to lead the insurance industry itself into a new, customer-driven era. We aim to tell the ING Insurance story through the people who actually did the work. They share with us their blue-sky dreams for customers (Mapping the CustoMer Journey, page 12), the legwork they’ve done (ConduCting a gap

analysis, page 16), how they’re wrestling with Behavioural Change (page 26). And they tell us again and again why it’s all worth it (We Care, page 20).

So I hope you enjoy reading about ING’s efforts as much as I’ve enjoyed being part of them. And on behalf of the Futurelab team, I want to thank all the people we met on this journey for allowing us to tell their story.

Dear ReaderDoes the world really need a new magazine?

Alain ThysFUTURELAB

The importance of customer experience in life & pensions __4

ING’s journey towards customer-centricity ______________5

INTERVIEW: David Knibbe, CEO, ING Insurance International __6

JOURNEY PHASE 1: Customer-Centricity: the early days ______8

INTERVIEW: Renata Mrazova, CEO, ING Insurance, Czech & Slovak Republics _________________________ 10

JOURNEY PHASE 2: Mapping the customer journey _______ 12

INTERVIEW: Carmen Soare, CMO, ING Insurance, Romania _______________________________________ 14

JOURNEY PHASE 3: Designing and conducting a gap analysis _______________________________________ 16

INTERVIEW: Cornelia Coman, CEO, ING Insurance, Hungary _______________________________________ 18

JOURNEY PHASE 4: ING finds its heart: We Care __________ 20

INTERVIEW: Burçe Gültekin, Customer Experience Manager, ING Insurance International ________________ 22

JOURNEY PHASE 5: Building a team ___________________ 24

INTERVIEW: Ingrid Veling, HR Director, ING Insurance International ____________________________________ 26

JOURNEY PHASE 6: Taking action _____________________ 28

JOURNEY PHASE 7: Behaviours _______________________ 29

INTERVIEW: Mariken Tannemaat, Head of Commerce, ING Insurance International ________________________ 30

INTERVIEW: Chris Kersbergen, Head of Branding, ING Insurance __________________________________ 32

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Copyright © 2013 by Futurelab BVBA. All rights reserved. This magazine or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express writ-ten permission of the publisher: Futurelab BVBA, Hoornzeelstraat 24, B-3080 Tervuren, Belgium. www.futurelab.net

Responsible publisher: Alain ThysEditor: Ros Gray Design: Agustín Argüelles | TPDPrinting: Smartphoto

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the importance of customer experience in life & pensions

AlAin Thys FuTurelAb

To succeed in a rapidly changing landscape, life and pensions companies need to deliver a quality customer experience in every phase of the customer relationship.

A ll across Europe, the life insurance and pension industry is gearing up for a transformation. Regulators in every

market are imposing new rules of customer engagement and have even outlawed some legacy business practices. The recent investment crisis has left customers smarter. With an abundance of digital resources at their fingertips, they are more demanding than ever – even hypercritical of the brands they trust to look after their hard-earned money.The changes for the industry will be many and varied, but it is clear that the days are over when insurers could simply sell a policy and move on. Today, insurance firms must actively manage the customer relationship over its entire lifetime and even beyond. Customer experience (CX) management has become one of the key pillars of success.But successfully managing CX isn’t easy. It requires letting go of the product-obsessed, distribution-driven and compli-ance-centric views that are deeply engrained throughout the industry. For those who are successful, the benefits are clear:

SECURE DISTRIBUTION

With the abolition of traditional commission systems in many markets, people will soon need to pay for investment advice. But as the industry has allowed consumers to believe

this advice has always been ‘free’, the psychological barrier to actually opening their wallet will be significant. This may lead to customers dropping out of the system or pursuing alternatives.To remain successful, insurers will need to support their traditional channels by offering added value and a clearly differentiated customer experience. If channel partners are unwilling – or unable – to adapt, insurers need to develop alternative (direct) servicing models to provide the experi-ence customers seek.

hIGh-TECh hIGh-TOUCh

As their needs become more sophisticated, customers will require ever more tailored solutions to manage and protect their wealth. Thanks to technological developments, this becomes easier to do transparently, allowing for better needs-capture, big data analytics and automated underwrit-ing/risk management. But all this is meaningless if customers don’t feel that they have entrusted their money to a firm who really understands their situation and has their back, come what may. This requires insurers to carefully script and manage every touch-point and every interaction in the customer relationship.

ThE REINVESTmENT OppORTUNITy

Particularly in greying economies, the number of people with maturing policies is rapidly increasing. But just because someone has turned 65, this doesn’t mean his/her investment days are over: reinvestment remains relevant, especially for Mass Affluent segments. However, these customers will only part with their new-found liquidities if they feel that the companies who are asking them to reinvest, have treated them well in the past. Only those insurers who have carefully managed their customer experience up to this point of maturity, will be able to lay any kind of claim on these customers now.

CUSTOmER pROfITABILITy

Finally, the business case for providing a great customer experience is solid. Happy customers are significantly more profitable than unhappy ones. They lapse less. They are easier to service. They are more open to purchasing new products. And if you’re lucky, they introduce their friends.So even if some of the benefits for managing the customer experience appear to be longer term, the short-term value generated can be significant. In short, those insurers who deliver a great customer experience today, will secure a major driver for growth and profit in tomorrow’s market. Those who neglect this reality, do so at their peril. n


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• NPS gets rolled out across the ING world

• All country leadership teams confirm their strategic commitment to customer-centricity

• First customer-oriented initiatives being explored in various ING markets

• ING announces a strategic focus on customer-centricity

• Introduction of Net Promoter Score as a key metric

• Successful NPS pilots in Belgium and Poland

• CEO, David Knibbe challenges the business to develop minimum customer experience (CX) standards

• First ever customer experience (CX) champions meeting

• CX champions formulate a regional customer journey, minimum CX standards and underlying KPIs

• Regional CEOs sign off customer journey, minimum CX standards and KPIs

• CX champions present all work done to all country leadership teams, launching the We Care - mantra and video

• Polish team leads regional market research to validate journey and CX minimum standards with the customer

• Bulgarian team designs framework to analyse gaps between CX minimum standards and organisational reality

• All teams conduct CX gap analysis in own business units

• Hungarian CEO decides to accelerate the country’s customer-centric transformation

• CX gap analysis is translated into clear action plans, supported by leadership team

• Ralph Hamers, CEO ING Group and David Knibbe, CEO ING Insurance International, personally confirm their support to the CX efforts in a meeting with the CX champions

• Action plan implementation starts with clear milestones agreed across the business

• CX champions start looking at ways to structurally embed the customer voice across all strategic priorities

• ING leadership and champions celebrate successes achieved to date and confirm future direction

ING’s journey towards customer-centricity


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DavID KnibbeChIef exeCutIve offICer ING INSuraNCe INterNatIoNal

Why did ING choose to follow a customer strategy?

I know there are a lot of clichés about customer-centricity out there; sometimes it seems like everyone’s talking about it. But ING has two clear, solid reasons for adopting a strategic focus on the customer. The first one is external: customer-centricity is unclaimed territory in the insurance industry. There are operational excellence players, cost-leaders – lots of price fighting in Western Europe in fact – but the customer-centric space is wide open. Sure, lots of people talk about it but no one is actually doing it. Then, there is the internal reason: customer-focus is close to what we are. It resonates strongly inside ING. If you look at what gets people excited, it’s not rationalization of processes or driving out costs, it’s the customer. Whenever you talk about customers you can literally feel the energy coming into the room. Business units have traditionally had a very hierarchical structure; now customer experience (CX) champions are reporting straight to their board or the CEO. We also have to be honest: in the past our strategies didn’t talk enough about customers, but the minute we brought it up I could see it was the direction people really wanted to go. The pull towards customer-centricity just felt natural. When you have this kind of resonance, it makes it much easier to rally people around your end goal.

What is ING’s end goal with regards to customers?

Ultimately, we want to take a leading role in the insurance industry, we want to be the ones making it better: customer-centric and sustainable. We want to be part of consumers’ financial education, driving up financial literacy, as a trusted partner. We want to feel welcome in society, in people’s lives. Right now, insurance is more of a necessity or a nuisance. People are happy that Apple is around; they don’t have that same happiness that ING is around. We realise we cannot achieve this goal on our own: our industry needs to undergo a transformation too. But ING can lead this direction, getting support from the regulators and encouraging everyone in the business to change.

How far along is ING on the journey?

This may not be a popular answer, but we’re not that far along. I think customer-focus has always been in our DNA, but that’s not to say we were particularly good at it. We’ve made great progress, but in absolute terms we’re still not operating at a highly customer-centric level. In relative terms, we’re better than our competitors, but the insurance industry is the wrong benchmark for us here. We knew this would be a long journey and we are

“Customer-focus is close to what we are. It resonates strongly inside ING. When you talk about customers you can literally feel the energy coming into the room.”

Through some of the most turbulent times in the financial services industry, David Knibbe has kept a steady hand on ING’s customer strategy. In this interview David tells us why customer-centricity belongs in the boardroom and how he’s managed to keep it on the agenda for so long.


at the beginning of it. There are some key things we have achieved: we’ve rallied the troops and created widespread buy-in. We have our team of customer experience champi-ons in place. We have good communications around the topic of the customer and we have work streams moving things forward. We are also beginning to see customer-focus embedded in the organization, looking at product development and IT systems with customers in mind. All of that is good. But fundamentally, we are still at the beginning. For example, I just discovered the way we do a basic address change in lots of countries: the customer gives their new address to their agent on a piece of paper, the agent somehow passes that piece of paper to someone somewhere at ING, that person has to make sure it gets into the right database. In the Netherlands too: why should customers have to give their new address to us five times before we get it right? Some little database somewhere is not connected to some other little database. It’s messy. This is typical in many industries, and the scary reality is that we are no exception. We’ve done a lot of good stuff but we still need to work on basics like this. Fixing this is all about staying focused. Every year there’s a tendency to come up with something new in the name of progress. But the plain reality is that we have not yet achieved all of our minimum standards. Nowhere near in some respects. So we need to keep the focus on following through on what we started, not creating new plans. Other-wise we’ll just be scratching the surface forever and that is not why we’re here. So, much as I hate to be boring and say ‘no’ to new plans, ideas and initiatives, I do it because I want us to use our energy and creativity on the targets we have already set.

Customer-centricity resonates at an emotional level. How do you rationalise this with the need for it to make money?

These two things are not mutually exclusive. You just need to adjust your emphasis depending on whom you are talking to and what you want to achieve with your message. It was delightfully easy to sell customer-focus internally: the vast majority of people in the region believed instinctively that it would work, that it was the right way to go. But you need to keep a broad perspective and remember that your wider stakeholder audiences, financial communi-ties and even people at ING head office are less involved in customer activities on a day-to-day basis. To make customer-focus resonate with them, you need to choose the right message. For example focus on how a certain increase in your Net Promoter Score can lead to x% increase in reten-tion, show people that this increase in retention creates embedded value y and z.

The other day, I presented to over a hundred analysts, all wanting to know about our upcoming IPO. If you look at my speech, customer experience was in there as a central part of our strategy, but it was largely a presentation on numbers and cash flows. It doesn’t mean the customer strategy is no longer important, it just means it’s less interesting to that audience. I never judge the value of a strategy by how ‘inter-esting’ it is.

What advice would you give to other CEOs embarking on this kind of initiative?

First, get customer-centricity out of PowerPoint and into people’s hands. Make it into something practical. A great example was the way we drove our high level thinking down into minimum standards. This was not driven by some ‘head office committee’ but by people from each of the countries. This made it real. Second, separate the ‘what’ from the ‘how’. What I mean by that is set simple targets on what to do but not on how to do it. For example if you ask business units to make contact with every customer at least twice a year, don’t tell them how they should make contact. Leave some space for people to make it their own, to make it worka-ble. Third, find another name for ‘minimum standards’! In hindsight this was not the right terminology for our targets, it makes them sound too basic, unambitious, unexciting, like hygiene factors. The reality is, if we achieve those ‘minimum standards’ we’ll be light years ahead of the industry. Their name really does not do them justice.

Do you have any words of encouragement for the customer experience champions?

I very much admire their commitment and enthusiasm; the champions have put the customer topic on the agenda and they are managing to keep it there. They have a hell of a job. Take a look at the change calendars for any of the business units, the things we ask them to do: prepare for the separation of company, adapt to all the regulatory changes, make their websites more secure, keep pace with consumer changes, technology changes, the list of demands goes on and on. So to get the topic of the customer continuously high on that kind of agenda is not easy. They’ve done enormously well. Sometimes they get frustrated and they come back to me and say where is the customer in this decision or that decision? Of course they understand that I have to balance things and make a continuous trade-off, but I want them to keep pushing. So my message to the champions is to keep pushing. Don’t let the business get away with just ticking the box. It’s a real challenge, but we need to embed these stand-ards in the business. n

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“We want to be the ones making it better: customer-centric and sustainable. We want to feel welcome in society, in people’s lives. Right now, insurance is more of a necessity or a nuisance.”

“Fixing this is all about staying focused. Focus on how a certain increase in your Net Promoter Score can lead to x% increase in retention, show that this increase in retention creates embedded value y and z.”


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Net Promoter Score® (NPS) is a way of driving customer-centric improve-ments across an entire organisation. It measures the positive advocacy that exists for your brand; the word of mouth that is generated by your customers. Generating the score is fairly simple. It asks customers not what they think about you but whether they would recommend you to a friend or colleague – i.e. how likely are they to be an advocate for your product? The Net Promoter Score is known by some as the one number everybody in your business needs to know. And it is a powerful number – a way of encapsulating neatly and simply how likely people are to be advocates of your brand. Most companies would expect a score of between 5% and 10%, and those companies with fast-growing brands (such as Amazon or Dell) a score of between 50% and 80%. What’s more important than the absolute score, though, is the direction of travel – it should be increasing over time.

Net Promoter, Net Promoter Score, and NPS are trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.

Customer-centricity: the early days

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What is NPS?

Long before the economic crisis, insurance companies had a negative reputation among customers for complexity, lack of clarity and impersonal service. So in 2008 when financial markets fell, many customers lost all faith. It was against this backdrop that ING Insurance began its quest to regain the trust of its customers. It began with a customer-focus campaign called Easier and continued with the introduction of NpS as a key non-financial metric. After business units in Belgium and poland proved the validity of the approach in a successful pilot, a team of NpS champions organised a European roadshow going from country to country to convince regional leaders and help implement customer-centric initiatives. This team – ING’s first believers – pioneered the work that today’s customer experience champions are carrying forward.

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P iloting NPS in Poland provided ING’s local companies with a competitive advan-tage at a time when clients were hungry for good service. This was a source of

growth and continues to be so today. It was pioneering but I strongly believe that being the first to do something gives you an advantage and enables you to differenti-ate. As with anything new it required very strong engagement and passion from me and my team; we believed in it and got behind it to make sure it happened.

C ustomer-centricity is still a relatively young programme in ING, but it has it roots in the Easier campaign from

2008.Customers were telling us they simply wanted us to make it ‘easier’ to do business with ING and we started several streams of activity to move towards that goal. Our Head of Global Marketing at the time, Isabelle Conner, was looking for some way of measuring the success of the Easier campaign and gather customer feedback in a simple, systematic and direct way. She found NPS. Looking back, NPS opened up a whole world of feedback and insight for ING. We had something we could use to change our processes and products and become much more customer-centric. We found great support from the two CEOs in Belgium and Poland, particularly from Tomasz Blawat who was a great believer in customer-centricity and piloted NPS for the insurance side of the business. The two-country pilot was a huge success; the CEOs presented to the board and said that for the first time they had a way to not only listen to the customer but also take actions on the feedback. They were also able to show an early business case for NPS and this gave us the mandate to roll out NPS to all the regions both in banking and insurance. We commenced an enormous ‘roadshow’ rollout, taking NPS to one country at a time. By the end of the year, CEOs

were queuing up to be next, but at the beginning it took time and communication skills to convince people to dedicate the resources to NPS. NPS made sense to people but it was necessary to back that up with the business case so the Belgian and Polish pilots were essential from that point of view. ING is always cautious about trying new things. Although we had a central mandate it was important to take each country separately and build their NPS together. It meant we were tailoring it, not ‘copy and pasting’. This way people felt that it was right for their business, their customers, their culture, and not something imposed from head office. Because of this local approach people really believed in and embraced NPS. The same is true of today’s customer-centricity initiative.During these early days, I discovered a lot of the same learn-ings as our existing customer champions: that you need to motivate people to believe in this story. Once you do that you can achieve a lot, you just need to make that ‘click’ happen. Meeting people face to face really helps. I also learned how to manage my own energy. Cultural shifts last a long time and this kind of work can be draining, especially if it’s close to your heart; you need to develop stamina, otherwise you will burn out. There were some crazy times on the NPS roadshow but you get into a rhythm and you work out where you need to invest your energy and where you can hold back a little.

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“You need to motivate people to believe in this story. Once you do that you can achieve a lot, you just need to make that ‘click’ happen. Meeting people face to face really helps.”

T he Net Promoter System is a great way to improve customer experience. But on its own it’s not

enough. Listening to customers and following up on their comments are – in the end – reactive measures. You can only intervene after the fact. True excellence lies in a proactive attitude towards customer experience. A desire to make sure things go right first time and make them even better next time. This requires three components:

•a clearly defined experience: Many businesses say they want to offer a ‘great customer experience’ but few can tell what that really means. Unless this is clarified and detailed, people don’t really know what to do in order to delight customers.

•strong experience basics: These are the activities, processes and mechanisms that make sure that the basic services and customer expectations are being met. They need to be ‘hardwired’ into the business so they can become the foundation for more creative initiatives.

•a customer experience movement: Finally, there needs to be a momentum in the business in which the people want to move ‘beyond the basics’ and take initia-tives to improve customer experience. This is the only way to achieve the critical mass needed to make a real difference.

When ING launched its customer experience drive, each of these three components were considered and planned in time. First, by mapping the customer journey. Then by establishing clear customer experience minimum stand-ards. Third, by creating an employee movement captured in the mantra We Care. n

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the heart of things, there are very few. I’m excited to work for ING because you feel our purpose: to help customers on their good days and their bad days. I could not work for a company where I do not feel that kind of identity.

Why did you become a key sponsor for customer experience?

For me it’s really obvious. For the last 24 years my husband has been running our family fabric business. For him, it’s completely normal to put the customer at the centre of everything, customer needs and feelings are always and automatically at the top of his list. In a family business if you don’t do that, you simply will not survive. Big corpo-rations have somehow lost that, partly through the complexity we face. But when I joined ING and people asked me what our strategy should be, I said everything, every moment, every deci-sion should be based on the customer. I see the customer experience team as a special club. I wanted to join this club, be part of it, expand it and influence it from the CEO community point of view. Giving the best customer care, the best customer experience is the only way we can differentiate ourselves in the future. We will succeed and we will be different because of it.

What you think of the progress that’s been made so far?

Belief in customer-centricity started as a few small islands in ING. People used to say about us, “Why are they always going on and on about the customer?” Then, the islands got bigger and we saw a few more islands. Now we hope all these islands will get connected and ING will be a company with a real customer-centric culture. We will not overcome all the barriers just with the champions team; it’s about everyone,

reNata MrazovaCeo, ING INSuraNCe CzeCh & Slovak republICS

“I have had enough of how companies ‘talk talk talk’ about the customer all the time. When you look at who’s actually putting the customer at the heart of things, there are very few.”

It’s fashionable for businesses to talk about customer-focus. Does ING really mean it?

ING means it. ING believes in it. We are a group of people who think of ING as our own business. I worked for ING from 2000 to 2005. I left then rejoined. People ask me why I came back: it’s because we have a special culture, we have a special kind of love

between us. I didn’t feel that anywhere else. So customer-centricity is not just a nice statement or a piece of paper; our hearts are in it. You can tell when you talk to senior management, all the CEOs, the business units, you can tell when you talk to the customer experi-ence champions. I have had enough of how companies ‘talk talk talk’ about the customer all the time. When you look at who’s actually putting the customer at

Renata Mrazova, ING’s CEO in the Czech & Slovak Republics, tells us how she feels about being an early customer experience sponsor and what ING can learn from boxed vegetables…


every behaviour, every moment. I see that we have achieved so much in the last two years. We had a staff meeting a couple of months ago and I said, “Guys, tell me, what is the ING strategy”. Before, I would have not had an answer. Now they say to me “Customer-focus!”. Everyone knows! We have succeeded in putting the customer in the minds of our people. We will just continue to work on it, we will link it to behav-iours, we will add more touchpoints, we will think of more ‘wow’ effects, we will make processes simpler and more beautiful from the customer point of view. We will make the customer feel like a king.

How has ING been able to make such good progress so quickly?

Because of the dedication, focus, belief and passion of our people. Also we kept it simple and from day one we treated it as the local responsibility of each business unit. We didn’t present it as a regional or central project. They have central support and co-ordination but this whole success belongs to the coun-tries. It is they who have mapped the journey and set the standards, done the gap analysis, not head office, not consultants. Burçe, ING’s customer experience manager, has always said to the business units “I am here for you, I will support you always when you need it, but you are the people who drive it”. This way of working is now a proven concept. Of course cultural change movements face obstacles, but because there is belief at local level, it will be successful. If you involve people from the beginning, they feel ownership. You also save yourself a lot of time because you don’t need to convince them later on, they’re already in, already commit-ted. This is actually the way to fast track implementation.

What are the remaining challenges involved in becoming a customer-centric organisation?

ING Insurance has a lot on its plate. We are preparing for a standalone future as well as lots of business-critical projects. I think the issue is that in the customer experience team, we are all so passionate

and a little impatient; if we could run like hell towards our customer goals, we would! So sometimes we feel frus-trated that the business has to consider other priorities. I think this frustration is completely understandable and as long as you explain that we will come back to our long-term customer strategy, people are reassured. I don’t have any worries about the future, I am confident that we will succeed, that ING will differentiate itself with customer-focus. But heavy change takes time, especially behav-ioural change.

What have you learned from your involvement in the customer experience initiative?

I learned a long time ago that what I think is not important; we need to find out what customers think. While I was on maternity leave I helped my husband with the family business and I joined him to choose some new fabric collections for our shops. Of course I just chose the ones I liked, leaving out the ones I thought were a bit old-fash-ioned or just plain ugly. It turns out that those were the most popular, those were the ones customers wanted most. The ones I chose did not sell at all! That was a complete eye-opener for me. I can have my opinion but to be successful, we need to know what customers think. I have also learned that if you passion-ately believe in something and share that passion with others you can have a powerful impact, you can inspire people. People just feel your passion and kind of catch it from you. I’ve learned that it’s essential for me to work on something that I really feel, something that makes sense to me on an emotional level.

In your vision of the future, what does ING look like?

If I think of the future of ING Insur-ance, or NN, as our future name will be, I see smiles on the faces of employ-ees and smiles on the faces of custom-ers. For employees, I see us all with a

clear sense of purpose to always give customers what they expect and also a little something extra. There’s an online company in the Czech Republic whose name translates as Fresh Boxes; they deliver fruit and vegetables to your home. I would love ING to work the way they do. They’re always thinking from the customer perspective, they commu-nicate appropriately at every stage in the process, they have a special personal touch, they anticipate what you need, they manage exactly what you see online and via email, their face-to-face delivery is also outstanding. The basic service and products are amazing but they keep throwing in little wow factors too, like special offers and recipe ideas. And that’s just fruit and vegetables! Life insurance has a much more sensitive and special place in people’s lives. We can support people during their happi-est moments like marriage, graduation, new jobs, the birth of children, and also during the saddest moments, such as death, injury or illness. For us, that personal touch should be a precondi-tion. Our business is all about emotions.

What would you say to people who want to help make ING more customer-centric?

My message to everyone in ING is that we need them, we need them to be involved. Wear the shoes of our custom-ers. We are all customers, we all know how it feels to be treated well and treated badly. I say bring that into work with you and think about customer emotions and expectations in everything you do. To our customer champions, I just give huge thanks and appreciation. I have such admiration for them, their dedica-tion and passion. They have taken this responsibility on themselves and they work on it next to their normal activi-ties. I am so proud of them. They made this happen and they inspire so many people around them. The success we have had in this change programme is their success. I send them lots of love. n

“Life insurance has a much more sensitive and special place in people’s lives. That personal touch should be a precondition.”

“I learned a long time ago that what I think is not important, we need to find out what customers think.”

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mapping the customer journey

CuStomer-DrIveN

To begin this transformation, ING Insurance created a customer journey map which showed the key ‘touchpoints’ in the relationship from a customer’s perspective: purchase, statement, claims and so on. The map included the customer’s practical expectations as well as their emotional state at each stage. Armed with this perspective, ING set minimum standards for how it wanted to perform at each stage in order to meet and even exceed customer expectations. Mapping the customer journey is a crucial but challenging step in the journey to customer-centricity. Many companies struggle to shift their thinking away from internal processes and towards the customer perspective. We showed this team how to walk in the shoes of the customer, ensuring that all decisions were driven by the customer voice. ING validated the chosen elements of the journey with a nine-country customer survey.

CArlos MonTForT inG sPAin

M apping the customer journey was challenging because it was a new

concept for us; it was the first time we had thought about the customer even having a journey. Certainly in Spain, for many years, we’d focused on sales, getting new customers in; we didn’t think much about where they went after that. After the crisis we started to think more about how to treat custom-ers better and NPS helped us listen to them, but it was mapping the customer journey that really made us look closely at the lifecycle. The journey mapping process had a wide impact. In addition to the customer journey and the minimum standards, it had an effect on how we thought of ourselves, how we saw our roles. We’ve changed the names of our departments to reflect different stages of the customer journey. Before it was just operations, front office, back office,

“Before it was just operations, front office, back office, marketing and so on, but now we have teams based on different customer needs at different points.”

2


MiChAl nesTorowiCz inG PolAnd

W e already knew the customer should be at the heart of our

focus and we had lots of ideas but mapping the journey gave us one clear picture, a structured model to work with. NPS had been giving us quick wins but we really needed this to show us the way forward. Simplicity was key with the customer journey because it had to work for all the countries and allow some room for local tailoring, local adjustment. With-out that it would have failed. When we showed it to the rest of the business, in different functions, I knew it was clear enough, no one challenged it as diffi-cult or wrong; people could understand it and agree with it. But it’s surprisingly hard to achieve that level of simplicity with something so complex. We had to make decisions all the time about what to leave out.

Cu

Sto

me

r-D

rIv

eN

marketing and so on but now we have teams based on different customer needs at different points, such as transactions, claims, retention, campaigns, customer experience and NPS. We’re much more in tune with the fact that our customers have changing requirements. Once you understand customer needs in more detail it opens up all kinds of ideas. I think journey mapping is a process we should eventually run again. We only chose five touchpoints to focus on this time but we could move onto others.

KrzyszToF CzeKAlA inG PolAnd

I t was exciting to map the customer journey, but I’d be lying if I said I

didn’t start with some anxiety! All the business units were so different; it was a challenge to find the common denom-inator and hard to see how we could map a journey that encompassed the perspective of customers from all coun-tries. But we managed to bring it all together and, in fact, that process of looking at what we all have in common is what brought the team together as well. It was a big achievement. To be completely honest it did occur to me many times that it was a lot of work to do and the deadlines were very chal-lenging. Also once you get into an exer-cise like this, you keep getting more and more ideas all the time, touchpoints to include, KPIs to add. Our ideas began to grow exponentially and at one point it became too complex. But in the end we managed to keep it simple and chose five touchpoints with a few KPIs for each. So it was a very creative time but also a lesson in how to focus.

VlAdiMir GAsPAr inG CzeCh & sloVAK rePubliCs

F or me the customer journey was ING getting back to the customer.

The business has grown so big that it lost that personal touch that it had in the early days – like a small farmers market turning into Tesco or even a Walmart. We’d lost what made us differ-ent and special. ING is getting back what we had, and I think it’s still in our DNA. You do a customer journey because you want to know what deep, systematic, dramatic changes are necessary to build something amazing for the customer and the business. We’d already made

a few quick wins from NPS but to get to the root of problems you look at the journey. The thing we had to avoid was being too ambitious, setting our expec-tations too high: minimum really has to mean minimum. We had to remember that if you can achieve the minimum standards you’re still going to beat the competition. Keeping the journey simple was crucial. We’re not trying to build an atomic power plant here!

riChArd PerCiVAl FuTurelAb

T his customer journey map couldn’t possibly have been a head

office activity. It had to be a practical tool in which each country could recognise its market reality and one they all felt comfortable working with. This meant that everyone had to work together rather than settle for an unsatisfactory compromise. I saw the ING customer experience champions start to work as a team for the first time during the customer journey exercise, particu-larly when they presented results to the leadership team. I was impressed by the openness in the team and the willing-ness of each business unit to share their weaknesses. Every country accepted the feedback and criticism that came out of the customer research. That absence of ego is a good sign for the future of the CX champions team and their ability to see the whole process through together. n

“You do a customer journey because you want to know what deep, systematic, dramatic changes are necessary to build something amazing for the customer.”


13

like our former CEO, Cornelia. She had an agenda that was so obviously in support of the customer movement: she was the sponsor of key customer-orientated projects, even having face-to-face meetings with customers. When you see your leaders supporting something because they truly believe in it – and not just because it comes from head office – that inspires. I also think that the timing has been an impor-tant driver. Coming out of the finan-cial crisis we were looking to almost reinvent ourselves by going back to our customer instincts, back to our roots. I think that has generated customer action for the right reasons.

How have you motivated people to join the customer mission?

We learned a lot from our experience with NPS; we had particular success

CarmeN SoareChIef marketING offICer ING INSuraNCe romaNIa

You’ve been with ING for 16 years. What changes have you seen in customer-focus?

Yes I think I can speak for the early days, I certainly feel part of this story! Three years ago I had the opportunity to be involved in the introduction of NPS in Romania. We were one of the first busi-ness units to launch following the pilot. This was perhaps the beginning of the strategic journey ING is following but I think ING had a customer-focus way before then. For me as a marketer, that’s

been one of the great attractions of working at ING, the fact that customer-centricity is understood and embraced. NPS has been an important accelerator but the culture already existed. I think many of us always felt a strong drive to put the customer at the heart of things but introducing NPS helped us share that with more people and involve more colleagues in the ‘mission’.

Why has customer-centricity gathered speed over the last couple of years?

Well, NPS gave us a real platform to build on; we weren’t starting from nothing. From there I think we’ve been able to move so quickly because we have been lucky enough to have been supported by leaders who really believe in customer-centricity, not just talk about it. I’m thinking of real believers

“We’ve come so far with our focus on customers, there’s no way we’re letting it go now.”

“Many of us always felt a strong drive to put the customer at the heart of things but introducing NPS helped us share that with more people and involve more colleagues in the ‘mission’.”

Sixteen years at ING, puts Romanian CMO Carmen Soare in a great position to talk about the company’s DNA and how the financial crisis reinvigorated its customer-focus. We asked her about Romania’s pioneering work with NPS and Random Acts of Kindness.


with internal buy-in. Our main aim was to involve lots and lots of people which of course always makes a project longer but if you make people feel like they’ve been involved in shaping and building some-thing from the start you have a greater chance of success. We put a lot of effort into our internal communications. For example in NPS launch week we turned the entire office into NPS Town, complete with crossroads, street names for each department. We put ‘Prior-ity to Customers’ signs everywhere, we labelled meeting rooms with “Important Customer Decisions Taken Here’. We put little heart-shaped messages everywhere with customer quotes on them (orange for positive, blue for less positive). Staff literally couldn’t move without learn-ing something about the customer! We also hired chefs to help us make jam for customers one day under the campaign line ‘Fruitfully Yours’. We sent the jam to customers along with a little movie. Because we have such a young work-force in Romania – the average age here is 29 – we tried to make the whole thing fun and playful.

Marketing departments are naturally closer to customers. How can others feel the same?

We hold regular open days in our contact centres where everyone can listen in to customer calls. It helps so much with internal relationships and building respect for each other’s roles. After listening in, all of a sudden our IT colleagues could see how important the agents’ job was, and also how the tools and systems could be improved to help. When you see the operations team talk-ing about a project and thinking about how a project would affect customer experience, you see that sharing the customer voice through the organisa-tion can help people out of their silos. Silos are starting to fade away. That’s the biggest reward for me, seeing things go in the direction that we only dreamt of a few years ago. To see the strategy

we fought for, running across the entire organisation, not just marketing, not just the customer champions; you know you are on the right track.

What has been the most challenging aspect of the customer-centricity initiative?

Our biggest challenge was transforming our operational direction from a focus on acquisition of new customers to a focus on retention and servicing; look-ing at how to look after customers after the moment of sales, serving changing needs over 20 years, the needs of differ-ent segments at different stages in the customer lifecycle. This was new terri-tory for us. Futurelab helped us enor-mously with this on a local level and when it came to mapping the customer journey across the region and designing touchpoint experiences, we already had done a lot of work on it. We’ve come so far with our focus on customers, there’s no way we’re letting it go now.

You were the first to introduce Random Acts of Kindness. How did this come about?

At the start of this process transforma-tion, we listened to a lot of ‘closing the loop’ calls and realised that our agents were lacking that emotional connec-tion with customers. Customers were obviously talking to us like humans and we were responding without empathy or emotion. We tried to create a more empathetic way of communi-cating and one of the things we intro-duced was Random Acts of Kindness. This was so powerful: it empowered our front office employees to identify oppor-tunities during regular customer inter-actions and create positive surprises for ING’s customers, but also it improved

their engagement, their listening skills and their empathy. Random Acts of Kindness generate a flow of positive messages between agents and custom-ers and that is very energising. Other business units have now adopted Random Acts of Kindness.

What is your focus for the customer-centricity movement over the coming year?

We will of course be supporting Cristina our CX champion so we can share and learn best practice across the business units. As the strategy becomes embedded within ING, I think it’s important for us to align our activ-ity locally, so that we are not duplicat-ing efforts and wasting time. As the customer movement gathers momen-tum, there are more and more projects where the project owners are think-ing about the customer impacts: new ideas are coming up all the time. We’re looking at ways to try and co-ordinate all of that. One step has been to appoint CX project executives for the top three touch points; they have the freedom to form their own teams and come up with improvements. So we’re aiming to align all this activity via monthly customer experience community meetings to avoid overlap, share learning, correlate activity and funnel ideas to the right work stream. We really want to get to a situation where customer-centricity is just business as usual and I think we are getting there! n

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“Our biggest challenge was transforming our operational direction from a focus on acquisition of new customers to a focus on retention and servicing.”

“Coming out of the financial crisis we were looking to almost reinvent ourselves by going back to our cus-tomer instincts, back to our roots.”


15

The journey towards customer-centricity

begins with a vision of where you want

to be. you set goals and standards for

how you want to treat your customers in

the future. In a gap analysis, you look at

where you are right now. you identify the

gaps between current performance and

target performance and you explore the

reasons behind those gaps. It can be a

tough task; businesses suddenly see how

far they still have to go. The hallmark of

a successful gap analysis is building a

true and complete picture of the barriers

and bottlenecks inside a business.

excellent support from senior management who reassured and motivated people to help us. Of course there were some things we had to leave out of the analysis. If you don’t want to drown in detail you have to be realistic about how much you can measure and we were very careful about what to include and what to save for later: we looked at only those areas that had a direct impact on the customer experience. In the end I think we designed a simple, clear framework that could be used to measure the gaps in each country. The gap analysis showed each country how far we had to go to achieve each standard and where to focus our energies and resources. We knew we had a lot to do, but it never felt overwhelming. Partly because we already knew where the problems were in our own country – most of us are also ING customers after all. But mainly because we never aimed for perfect. Although we had our long-term vision for customer experience, we were initially aiming for ‘first edition’ improvements. That helped us a lot.I’m very happy to be part of this customer experience movement at ING. I feel that working alongside other countries has expanded my world and I am part of a bigger team as well as a local one. In ING I’ve always tried to look at things from the customer perspective; being part of this team has shown me that I am not alone.

praGmatIC

W e’d been talking for so long about making things better for ING customers, starting the gap analysis

felt like a first real step towards making it actually happen. So I remember this as an exciting period, but we were also a little nervous.A gap analysis felt like a kind of ‘reality check’. We went from agreeing the minimum standards to looking at how we were actually treating customers. Measuring the gaps – and seeing how large some of them were – could have been a demoralising experience. But it absolutely wasn’t. I remem-ber just being very focused and very busy. I also found the honesty and openness of the other countries encouraging and heart-warming; everyone was willing to admit their own weaknesses. We had already developed a strong sense of team spirit by this point and were driven by a shared goal to make things better. I think we achieved a huge amount in a short time. We had to ask other people for a lot of information, mapping some complicated processes, often for the first time. We had

petya valkova ING bulGarIa

Designing and conducting a gap analysis

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pr

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ICI remember the gap analysis was a big job – not a difficult one – there was just an awful lot of ground to cover in a

short space of time. But I was delighted to have the chance to finally develop something more professional and more standardised; it was a sign that we were moving forward as a company with customer-centricity.Gap analysis is like collecting pieces of a puzzle to build a picture of how far away we are from where we want to be.

It was fun! We held so many workshops with our colleagues here in Bulgaria to collect their opinions and ideas. It felt like we were all starting work on real improvements. Because of NPS, we already knew where our major gaps were. There were no big surprises in the analysis; it was simply a case of going into more detail and operationalising some solutions. Under time pressure we just tried to be as organised as possi-ble. Before the gap analysis began, Petya and I prepared the framework that all the countries could use for the gap analy-sis. I am sure this helped streamline the whole process. We had a lot of practical support from Futurelab: their documen-tation was really good for structuring and scoping the analy-sis. They helped us make our gap analysis really efficient.

aNNa yoNkova ING bulGarIa

I nitially the gap analysis looked like a huge mountain to climb. There seemed to be so much to do. In such a short

space of time. But we got through it by being focused and organised. Futurelab had given us this well-structured package of tools and tips that really helped. We made sure we only spoke to the right people, the real process owners. Discussing everything with everyone would have taken so much time. We literally locked ourselves in a room for half a day with each process owner until we were sure we had got the process mapped accurately!Mapping the processes behind the touchpoints was fruitful in more ways than one. For one thing I really got to know how things work inside the business, how things fit together. I learned what my colleagues in different departments really did. In the end the interviewees themselves were coming up with great ideas, starting to think about the customer

and how things could be done differently. They really felt involved. So by the end of each interview session we already had proposed solutions and suggestions. One of the major success factors of the gap analysis is the way we all worked together as a team. We shared the workload, we shared our problems, and we all respected and listened to each other from day one. The gap analysis process revealed that, despite the differences between our markets, different products, different mentalities and so on, we have many things in common. We have become a team but we have also become friends; we share a passion for this subject and a belief in customer-centricity. These are good people, inspiring people. I can see that since then we have made huge progress. Often big change initiatives are very slow, there’s usually a long list of actions that never happen, but this is differ-ent, this is concrete. We started from zero and now we have so many actions nearly complete and some long-term ones underway too, like our online service channel. From the gap analysis, we have all created something from nothing. I am very proud of this fact.

maro papalabrIDI ING GreeCe

I n my opinion, the ING customer champions not only conducted the gap analysis to a high standard, they also

worked incredibly fast, probably twice as fast as any other gap analysis I’ve ever seen.One of the greatest challenges in doing a gap analysis is inves-tigating problems without criticising or blaming anyone for those problems. You need to create a positive atmosphere from the start of your interviews and workshops or you will not get willing co-operation from your colleagues. You also need to gently challenge people when their responses are not full or clear enough. We suggested that ING’s CX champions collect data evidence to identify gaps; often the internal perception of a problem is quite different from the reality shown by the data.

Because several business units were involved in this gap analysis, we had to design our approach carefully and develop a framework that would work for every country. Renata came up with the idea of giving each country one touchpoint and running a simultaneous gap analysis. This was a good way to involve everyone, rather than have a couple of countries working very very hard and the rest waiting around. It really made sense to share it this way. Comparing a customer’s desired state to the reality of the business, it’s easy to get lost in endless process analysis and maps – paralysis by analysis. Too little detail and you’ll miss some of the gaps and you fail to make any differences that the customer will notice. So a ‘mid-point’ gap analysis was created which remained abstract enough to move forward quickly, but was at the same time thorough. n

“One of the greatest challenges is investigating problems without criticising or blaming anyone.”

JuaN aleGre futurelab


17

Why do you believe so passionately in customer-centricity?

Because I’ve seen it work. I started as an actuary with ING, so I knew the basics of insurance; I understood how insur-ance makes money, but I know that should not be the focus. If you focus on profit – you make only tactical moves, you even do stupid things. When the financial crisis was first felt in Europe at the end of August 2008, I’d just started as CEO in Romania. I was 33 years old and 8 months pregnant with my second child. The crisis hit ING hard. So I had a new job, a new baby and a new crisis. I remember being very tired – up all night with my child – and then coming into work each day, I could just feel that everyone around me was very much afraid. Customers were losing money, losing jobs, desperate to protect what they had. Agents were struggling because no one was buying life insur-ance any more so their income dropped. It was very difficult to keep them on board. Employees were cutting their expenses, afraid of losing their jobs too. We were forced to adjust staff numbers of course, and everywhere around me was all uncertainty and fear. There was such heavy pressure on all of us.

Why did you focus on customers during the economic crisis?

We launched a big retention programme in Romania to address the losses. Basi-cally we carried out a lot of analysis to find out why customers were leaving, how we could make them stay, how we could make them buy again. We reviewed all the processes and touch-points that affected customers. We spoke to agents and customers and then we looked for urgent improvements: how could we make products more relevant,

what flexibility could we offer, would payment breaks help, what tools could we give to agents? We fixed a lot of prob-lems by asking these kinds of questions. The magical thing was, this retention programme seemed to help everyone. Agents suddenly felt supported by ING offering more flexibility: a lot of them came back. Employees also felt better as they had something positive to do. We had a very young team and this new focus on the customer gave them a lot of energy. It gave us our faith in customer-focus. We knew it was a way through the crisis for us all. And I could see it working to make people’s lives better. We had employees delivering Random Acts of Kindness, we could see the call centres really working proactively for the customer, I even found IT people work-ing weekends to develop and launch a new mobile app. I was so impressed with the way our people talked to customers, the way they supported each other, their general attitude. I could see customer-centricity working. It was this emer-gency retention programme that slowly turned into customer-centricity. This is where my passion comes from and I just know the finances will follow.

Hungary’s transformation has been described as ambitious. Why?

What we’re doing in Hungary is in line with ING’s vision for all its customers, but we’re perceived as daring because of our timescales. We’re launching a whole new approach to life insurance next year. Essentially we’ll be replac-ing today’s off-the-shelf products with

a new generation of solutions based on Customer Value Propositions. We will be launching more modular products, allowing customers to mix and match a range of components and build a policy, based on their changing needs. We’ll be offering fantastic levels of flexibility so policyholders can make changes as they go through different life stages. For the first time we’ll also be asking custom-ers to pay a fee and select a service level. That’s going to have a particularly big impact on the business. So yes, these are ambitious changes in a fairly short time period. I hope that our products and our overall customer experience will feel very different from all the financial services they’ve known so far. For exam-ple we’re drafting new, simple policy conditions with clear product summa-ries. We want customers to know exactly what they are covered for and what they are not covered for.

Why is Hungary taking such a bold approach?

The time is right for ING Hungary to take this accelerated path; there is a real opportunity for us to future-proof our operation by focusing on the customer. There is also a sense of urgency for ING in Hungary: we started selling life insur-ance in 1992, so over the next five years many of those policies will mature and a lot of our current policyholders will simply ‘roll off ’. We had to have a busi-ness plan that shows us how to replen-ish that customer base for years to come. I believe that our customer-focus is in line with consumer trends and customer expectations for simplicity

CorNelIa CoManCeo, ING INSuraNCe, huNGary

As Hungary steams ahead with an accelerated transformation, CEO Cornelia Coman expects an exciting and testing year for customer-centricity. She tells us why she is so confident about the future and how she’s managing the pace of change.


and flexibility. It’s also in line with new regulatory requirements for increased transparency and clarity.

How did you manage to persuade everyone to implement so much so soon?

I’ve learned that focusing on the customer releases a lot of energy inside a business and that people are really happy to be part of that. Employees genuinely want to do the right thing. They’re helping change the image of the company, making the perception of the industry more positive: that’s hugely motivational. The same is true for our agent partners – they’re excited to see new tools, new ways of talking to customers, new ways of meeting their needs with strong new offerings. Share-holders of course want to see the busi-ness case, the financial impact. We put together different scenarios for them and the figures really did the talking, they made good sense. From then on, it’s just a case of agreeing how quickly we can test ideas and move ahead. I, of course, always want to move as fast as possible!

What are the impacts of the rapid pace of change for the business?

It’s not easy. I would describe it as trying to build a new company within an existing company. Evolving to a new company requires a fundamental rede-sign of the way things operate: from front office through to back office. Every department is being hugely affected. Our sales people have to learn a whole new generation of products. Once the new ones are launched, the old prod-ucts will no longer exist, so they need to understand the new products inside out, in order to explain the benefits to customers. We’re changing the way we speak to customers too, so that’s got an impact for all our customer service and marketing colleagues. Everyone has been through the change management roller coaster where you go from being in a state of shock to a state of excite-ment then back to shock again. You begin the journey with a vision but as soon as you start to flesh it out with detail, you see the risks, deliverables,

dependencies, design and so on. It’s understandable when people just want to go back to the processes and priori-ties they’re used to: their comfort zone. My job is to keep reminding people of the vision and keep challenging them.

What have you learned from your involvement with customer-centricity so far?

I’ve learned that I sometimes have to slow myself down! It’s important not to push people too fast, to take the time before moving on, be patient, take people with you. I’ve learned to be careful with the pace of change. I’ve also learned that in ING we have very high standards and we can be too critical of ourselves. We think we’re going so slowly some-times but compared to our competitors we’re making so much progress and all in the right direction. I’ve learned that it’s important to acknowledge and cele-brate that as much as possible.

How would you describe your customer champion team?

The team is now at the level that it needs to be to make things happen in Hungary. My team members all share that positive attitude towards change; they see it as an opportunity, they’re motivated by it, not scared of it. I’ve got people who are very strong leaders, who stick to the strategy, manage people’s emotions and inspire the crowds. If you hear some of them speak you just get that feeling that you’ll do whatever they say! I’ve tried to get a good balance between right-brained and left-brained

people; I like it when you get emotional people and logical people challenging each other: “Don’t go too far!” then “Go a bit further!” “Let’s get really excited” then “Let’s not get too carried away!”

How are you and the Hungarian team sharing your learning with the rest of the business?

As a pioneer, we have an extra responsi-bility to offer ING the benefits of having a real test-bed for its customer-centric-ity strategy. We continually share our experiences, our mistakes, our learning and our excitement with the rest of the corporation – at all levels. I’ve presented at CELT to the CEOs from other coun-tries and I plan to follow those up as we progress with our launch. There have been cross-learning platforms at other functional levels too such as marketing and sales. Just because we’re moving forward, we never stop learning or listening to our colleagues and counter-parts. We’re always getting great ideas and helpful advice from them.

What are your hopes and fears for the next year?

I hope people will realise that we care. I hope they will talk positively about ING to friends and family. I hope sales and retention will be higher and that people will stay with us until the end of their policies. My dream would be to launch the new products alongside new brand-ing in 2014. It would be such a good opportunity to show the world a differ-ent way of doing life insurance. New brand values and a new attitude and a new business model delivering it. I hope our employees will stay engaged and feel that they are working for a success-ful company, taking the lead and shak-ing the insurance market in Hungary. And I hope shareholders will be happy with our returns.I worry of course about how custom-ers will adapt to paying a fee for service. This concept is so new for them even though they’ve been paying hidden costs all along; I worry that they will object once it becomes transparent. I have such strong faith in what we’re doing and really, I’m confident that we can take people with us. n

INte

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“We think we’re going so slowly sometimes but compared to our competitors we’re making so much progress and all in the right direction.”

“It’s understandable when people just want to go back to the processes and priorities they’re used to: their comfort zone. My job is to keep reminding people of the vision and keep challenging them.”


19

We Care

emotIoNal

Creating a customer journey map and an associated set of minimum standards is a very rational process: research, plan, process, execute. But to drive a customer movement through a company you need to touch people’s hearts. We created the mantra “We Care” along with a short campaign video as a way to reach the emotional core of ING and encapsulate the way ING feels about the customer. The video and the message became the foundation for many internal initiatives and are often used as a rallying cry to the organisation, to motivate, explain and show that ING is in the business of caring.

AGnieszKA ChojnACKA-Moroz inG PolAnd

O ur product is strongly connected to the idea of life and family.

What is more important than life and family and love? Let’s link this with our work. On one hand we know we exist thanks to our clients. On the other hand, we know that insurance is a very difficult business, with products you cannot touch or smell. If I can do anything to improve not only hard measures like satisfaction and loyalty but to have a positive effect on customers’ lives, to help them enjoy their life more, make it easier or what-ever, that is very powerful for me. So We Care is very close to my heart. For customer-centricity to really work in ING we need to work on mindsets. Trying to do this rationally, with the business case, the facts and the numbers, will work for some people. But for many the best way to do this is via emotions; for a lot of people this is the only way. Future-lab have brought both halves – head and heart – into ING, the emotional side as well as the business side. Both are neces-sary to convince everyone. We use the mantra all the time; we show the We Care video to our new recruits, and I’ve had a lot of them say to me it was

a very important moment for them – it had affected them deeply. They say they are used to employers talking about their corporate history, giving them the process manual but they said this video showed them that they are doing an important job. It’s very simple but it is the greatest feedback I can think of. This is mindset change. It changes every-thing you feel about your work.We’ve created a lot of local activity with the We Care mantra. We talk about caring for our clients, our employees and our community. It really motivates people and you feel like you are making a difference. That’s the success of the We Care, the fact that people at all levels can be deeply emotionally engaged and really want to help make things better. Employees even at the lowest level can come up with an idea for customers, a new idea for communication, anything. I believe that customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction are very closely linked. If customers are happy, our employees are happy too. That was my first thought on customer experience and I still believe it.

CrisTinA sAPerA inG roMAniA

I think our business goes more to the emotional side because it’s about

life; it’s about protecting your loved ones. The We Care slogan and video are all about what might happen in life. It’s about protecting those who are relying on you. It’s about bring-ing the future into the present, which is always emotional. For example a customer has had a new baby and is taking out insurance for when their child reaches 18, perhaps going to university. You need to be partly rational too of course, because customers are paying money, but remember that money does not get them anything tangible right now. In the end, you have to think about what you are actually delivering: it’s feelings that are the most important. Taking forward the We Care strategy in Romania, our internal communi-cation concept is iCare: client care, care about employees, about people around us. Being realistic, everyone forgets from time to time that they are working for the customer, the We Care video is part of reinforcing it, reminding people.

“Our product is strongly connected to the idea of life and family. What is more important than life and family and love?”

4



W e play the We Care video in meetings with agents. It has a

uniting effect, it makes us feel like we are all working together, even the sales force. We feel that we all depend on our customers and we are here for them. n

We worked with ING Insurance to create this phrase as a mantra; two simple words that capture the essence of the customer-centricity drive. The mantra was not written for external audiences or for use in adver-tising, but to inspire the peo-ple inside ING.

A t ING a Random Act of Kindness is very simple. It means doing something nice for someone. Without expecting

anything in return. A good deed. A heartfelt gesture. A gift, a card, a cake, a bunch of flowers. To us, it seems small, but to them, it can mean the world. We use Random Acts of Kind-ness to brighten our customers’ day. On a sad day it says: ”We’re sorry for your loss. You are not alone”. On a happy day it says ”Congratulations! We’re so pleased for you!” On a sore day it says ”Get Well Soon. We’re thinking of you.” On any day, it says: ”Thank you for being our customer. We care.” Listen to customers. Look for ways to show we care. It doesn’t have to relate to a claim, a product, or even insurance. In fact it can have nothing at all to do with ING. Just one human being to another. Random Acts of Kindness remind us that we can make a positive difference, however small.

What is We Care?

What is a Random Act of Kindness?


I t was at the leadership confer-ence where they first brought out

that video. They showed it, and to be completely honest, I would say it just broke us. People were crying in the regional conference; it was really emotional. It has had a much wider effect on the business.

Mrs. C had been diagnosed with cancer and was claiming on her insurance. In her NPS feedback questionnaire, she men-tioned she was rather upset after the long and tiring claims procedure, filling out lots of long forms. We sent her a bunch of flowers. In response, she sent this email:

Dear ING Life Insurance team,A few minutes ago I experienced one of the biggest and most beautiful surprises in my whole life. I received a package like never before. My first reaction was to refuse the delivery, as I knew I did not order anything. But the delivery man assured me that there was no mistake and I only had to sign. I didn’t imagine it not even for a moment: a wonderful bouquet of my favourite flowers! Its’ extraor-dinary! I’m overwhelmed by such attention I have rarely met. I tried to call you, but your working hours were over. So I am writing. At least, this way I am able to share my joy. Over the phone, my tears of emotion might have made it difficult to speak. Thank you from the bottom of my heart! I’m looking at this wonderful bouquet and can not believe it’s true. You’re the only financial support I have and I thank God for the inspiration that led me to take out a policy with you; but I never thought you would bring me such a surprise.

With all my thanks and a friendly hug, Mrs C.

A RANDOm ACT Of KINDNESS

“ThAnK you For your PATienCe And we hoPe you reCoVer soon. we’re ThinKinG oF you”

Mrs. R made a fairly rare claim. She had given birth to triplets! A boy and two girls! We sent her a cake made of Pampers. She wrote back to us: Hello ING!I am the mother of the three little ones in Mangalia who has just had a wonderful surprise when, a week ago, I got a present from you. I want to thank you very much for this gesture and I appreciate it very much. My little ones also want to say thank you.

Kind regards, Mrs R.


“ConGrATulATions! we’re hAPPy To CelebrATe This sPeCiAl TiMe wiTh you”

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Mr and Mrs D had a very modest financial situation: he works for a local sanitation company as a driver and she’s part of the public street and parks maintenance personnel. Howev-er, they have chosen to take out two financial plans for their son. Their contracts have always been paid on time. They told the agent:

”We do not want the same future for our child. He must have a chance to study and start his life and succeed, in the way we were not able to do. We are determined to do this, even if, sometimes we have to deny our son some of the small things that would make his childhood happier. For example, last week he begged us to buy him a skateboard, as all his friends have one, but we explained that we prefer to invest the money in his future, as it is a greater good.”

The agent pointed out this case to us and we sent Mr and Mrs D’s son a brand new skateboard.


“ThAnK you For ChoosinG inG To do suCh An iMPorTAnT job. we shAre your hoPes And FeelinGs And we Are here To helP”


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burçe GülteKinCuStomer experIeNCe maNaGer ING INSuraNCe INterNatIoNal

You joined ING as a finance specialist. Why did you move into customer experience?

Yes, it looks like I started out a long, long way away from the customer. I joined ING Turkey as a finance special-ist in 2006 and within a few years was managing a team responsible for finan-cial control and investment manage-ment. I was definitely on a finance career track and to me customers were just a source of profit. I was invited to an NPS workshop in 2011 and I went along out of curiosity and with a little cynicism: how could we in finance improve customer experience; was it even possible? The way Tomasz Blawat and Alain Thys were talking about customer-centricity as a way to differ-entiate ING sparked something in me: I thought about life insurance: “People die, we pay money. How can we ever hope to make this joyful?” But we can.

So how did you start improving the customer experience?

We started small. I was still in finance so I looked for quick, simple wins within my current area of impact, for example personalising fund newslet-ters, improving annual statements. We wrote some really clear FAQs for call centre agents so they could explain to customers what was happening to their money in a clear, non-technical way. My team and I began listening into closed loop customer calls. For the first time we actually heard angry customers say things like “A grocery store could manage my money better than you.” We called some dissatisfied customers and began to realise that even the smallest efforts on customer-focus can really work. The customers were surprised and pleased to hear that ING’s financial experts were taking the time to call and explain things to them. I could also see that my team were more energised and engaged by this customer-focus. And custom-ers were so much more joyful than finance – it’s much more fun to talk

After seven years in the finance department with ING Turkey, Burçe Gültekin made a big move professionally and physically: to support and develop the customer experience champions from head office in Amsterdam. She talks to us about building trust and fostering team spirit.

“It’s much more fun to talk to customers than to play with Excel!”


to customers than to play with Excel! Renata suggested I take this new role in head office as customer experience team leader. That night, I couldn’t sleep I was so excited!

What does the job of a customer experience champion team leader involve?

The number one priority is to estab-lish an environment of complete trust. Trust is more important than all the action plans and business cases in the world. At ING we are very focused and very results-orientated but we rarely share our struggles, our successes and how we feel. I think we achieved this and I am very happy to be part of this team.

Is it possible to create team spirit among champions based in nine different countries?

It is geographically challenging and the team had already undergone a lot of changes, so some of the champions were new even to each other. We set up a Facebook group where we could share our thoughts, ideas, pictures and so on. It’s often these more infor-mal connections that help a group feel like a team. There was an invita-tion to be open and for people to share what they like and dislike – especially dislike. That helped a lot. The team had been having weekly group conference calls where they could update each other quickly but would rarely ask for advice. I kept the same approach but we soon realised the group call wasn’t working – in fact it was driving us all crazy! So now we have one-to-one calls every week and this way we can see what’s needed and where there might be some useful learning to carry over

to other team members. Sharing and collaboration bring such a strong sense of shared ownership. We are all from different backgrounds and cultures, but we are sharing a passion and committed to a purpose: delivering an excellent customer experience. This team is bonded by the fact that we care. We care and we share.

How do you see the customer champions team developing in the future?

There’s such a lot for the team to do and I’d like to see ING give them the space to do it. At the moment some champions do their customer advocacy work as well as the ‘day job’. Now, more than ever, it’s important

that this whole journey is not seen as a project with a series of milestones or an end-point. It’s a change initia-tive that requires some fundamental transformations in our way of doing business and also a cultural change – this is ongoing, and there is a long way to go. What we need is a commit-ment to behaviours and behavioural change. When we all set the example by connecting with customers on a regular basis, by considering customers in every decision, customer-centricity will begin to filter down through to all our employees and will really become part of our company DNA. Customer-focus is actually a very simple way of thinking. Love all. Trust all. Always do the right thing.* n

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* inspired by “Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.” — William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well

“Now, more than ever, it’s important that this whole journey is not seen as a project with a series of milestones or an end-point. It’s a change initiative that requires some fundamental transformations in our way of doing business.”

“Customer-focus is actually a very simple way of thinking.”


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AMAyA MArTinez inG sPAin

T he quality of the people in this team, just as human beings, is

superb. It’s a great feeling to work with them. I was quite new to this team; I came along when it was already established. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been involved, welcomed or 100% accepted. We are all from differ-ent countries and business units but actually when it comes to customer experience, we all have the same problems. In this team we’re all doing a job we really believe in. Working with them is a great pleasure.

A centralised group can only achieve so much. Building a team of customer champions from business units can achieve a lot more, spreading the word and advocating the customer in their own area of influence. The team works remotely but regularly comes together in multi-country workshops to share experiences and take decisions about customer-centricity across the entire region. This is the story of how ING shaped a team of champions to share the work, build clear direction and start to grow customer-focus virally through the business. This collaborative approach has been a crucial success factor in ING’s success so far with cultural transformation.

burçe GülTeKin CusToMer exPerienCe MAnAGer

I spent my first three months in this role getting to know all the customer

experience champions. My number one priority has been to establish an environment of complete trust. Trust is more important than all the action plans and business cases in the world. In a new team, particularly an inter-national one, it’s not easy for people to show their weaknesses, so I wanted to help everyone feel connected to each other and be as open and as trusting as possible. At the end of our first customer experience champions team meeting in Budapest, I joked “Moving from a country to head office, I feel like I moved to the dark side!” to start our relationship with a smile. I also know from my years in Turkey that there’s a natural tension between head office and the regional offices; it can feel like head office is always telling you what to do. I didn’t want the customer champions to see me as another person from Amsterdam with lots of big plans and more work for them to do. My role is to support the team members and to guide them; they drive CX initiative and represent voice of our customers in their countries, and I’ve been learning a lot from them. I see myself like a kind of hub

building a team

CollaboratIve

for sharing best practice or solutions to common problems and try to create a harmony and be sure everyone is happy with the end results.

CrisTinA sAPerA inG roMAniA

T here are a few of us left from the original CX team but it’s nice to

have new people on board, fresh eyes. We all share the passion for customer-focus. It sounds like a cliché but it really is true: we really want the best thing for our customers. We challenge each other to do our best. We are all different in many ways, but similar in important ways: we are all open and ready for change, we like driving change and we share ideas and solutions with enthusiasm for creat-ing great customer experiences.


H ow do you get people to agree when it’s normal to disagree? First

of all you need a strong leader guiding things, someone who is prepared to take responsibility. This gives you confi-dence. And you have to remember that you don’t have to agree on everything, you just have to get close enough.

MehliKA ToK inG TurKey

I kind of bridge two roles: a central role with NPS and a role in CX. I see

the team from two angles and I can really see its importance. For me the customer champions team does feel like a proper team, in fact I would say it feels like a family.

“For me the customer champions team does feel like a proper team, in fact I would say it feels like a family.”

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“This group had to go through a lot of hard work, differences of opinions, negotiations, listening and compromises to get to where they are now.”

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I ’ve worked in international teams before but I was positively surprised

by this team. It’s different. We all genuinely have the same belief and willingness to help and share. Sometimes, we do not agree, but we have very good, positive discussions. We are very focused on customers and we simply trust each other to try and find the better solution. If I have a local problem – any problem – and I know that no one in Poland can help me, I can go to this team. If I need feedback, help, support or even just talk about things, I can go to this team. They are my friends. Sometimes it’s practi-cal help, sometimes it’s just support, sometimes it’s not even about business! When I ask colleagues from other countries to share ideas or help, they are very open. n

common goal and keep it at the top of the agenda I believe you can get over any cultural differences or business conflicts. This team did. They’ve also developed hugely as individuals through the whole customer journey, minimum standards and gap analy-sis process. They started thinking they were only co-ordinating things but at the end they were all starting to lead. It culminated in them presenting their work to the Central European Leader-ship Team (CELT). The fact that they had really pulled together as a team really impressed senior management. They could see that something had happened and had happened quickly. ING’s own champions were doing the work; as consultants we were able to take a back seat.


I think we manage to work as a team because we all believe in the same

thing, that customer-centricity is the only way to differentiate ING from the competition. We don’t have to waste time talking about why we’re doing this, we already know that; so we all just focus on the ‘how’. That’s the key to how we’ve been able to move quickly and smoothly.


Y ou don’t need to be the same kind of people to work as a successful

team; in fact it’s the differences that are so useful. We’ve all learned not only to respect the differences between us but also to welcome them, allow for them, give room for them.

AniKo PilAr inG hunGAry

I n Hungary we are learning to keep sharing our ideas and experience

with the rest of the team. Sharing needs to become more of a habit for us. We tend to assume that what we do is normal, that the other countries are also doing it, possibly even doing it better than us, but that is not always the case. We have a lot we can share with the team and learn from them as well. This is something Burçe is helping us with.


I could talk for hours with the people in this team. Even though we don’t

meet for sometimes six months at a time, when I send an email, they respond with help and support straight away. For me that is a real team.


I n a huge international organisation like ING, it’s completely human for

people to defend their own patch. So to see the customer experience champi-ons now really working as a team is a huge achievement. They have a truly European perspective – a bigger picture than just the local horizons. They are in the shoes of the customer; they talk the language of customers, not the language of processes. At times I didn’t think some of the timescales were even possible and they proved me wrong. Anything we threw at them, they did it. I’ve never actually seen a pace of change like it in an organisation this size. It’s all down to the hard work of the champi-ons. They’ve learned it can be done.It can take a while for a cross-cultural team to ‘gel’. This group had to go through a lot of hard work, differ-ences of opinions, negotiations, listen-ing and compromises to get to where they are now. If you can identify a


25

them as numbers, rather than real people. Customers are actually telling us they value authentic behaviour. So if authenticity is one of our values we need to translate that into our habits. Already in some countries we have given contact centre colleagues room to deal with customers in a more personal, flexible way and this is working well. Behaviours are particu-larly important in our line of business because our product is not what you would call a happy product. Contact is often triggered by unhappy events like injuries, illness or death. So when we do engage with the customer there’s already a lot of emotional energy there and that gives us a real opportunity to connect and make a positive difference.

What examples of customer-centric behaviour do you hope to see?

We’re still looking at specifics but this whole idea is not completely new to ING anyway: we’ve been doing Random Acts of Kindness for years now. These acts not only help the customer in the short term and create a strong bond with ING but they also have the power to transform employ-ees too. Hearing a customer’s surprise, gratitude and positive feedback is when you really connect. That’s rewarding. That’s a good energy that can perma-nently change the way people behave. Senior management teams are also receiving letters carrying the voice of

INGrID velinGhr DIreCtor ING INSuraNCe INterNatIoNal

Customer-centric culture at ING: how do you feel about progress so far?

Well, just look at what we have now that we did not have two years ago. We have mapped our customer journey, we have set our minimum standards and we have a detailed understanding of our gaps. We have also accepted that we cannot solve everything at once and we know which areas we want to focus on. After several years with NPS, we have a good understanding of the voice of our customer. Importantly we have our customer experience champions team. We’ve got all this knowledge inside the company and this has been the first part of the journey for ING Insurance Inter-national. We’re really focused on where we’re heading but I feel that we still have a long way to travel until the customer is entirely in our DNA. Sometimes we all feel like it’s a slow process – and it is! Big change has to be slow – you can’t rush that journey.

So what’s the next stage of the journey?

It’s time to involve more people. It’s time to really change the DNA of the business. We’re aiming for a point in the future where ING has truly trans-lated customer-focus into behaviours, and embedded them into the culture, a point where we can measure individ-ual and company performance against customer-focused criteria. That’s

what I mean by DNA. This is what we’re working on now, we’re looking at which behaviours best represent customer-centricity, which values should we include. It’s vital we take the time to get this right because it will affect everything we do; not only the way we speak to the customer, but perfor-mance measurement, training, devel-opment, products, even recruitment. We’re looking at customer complaints and feedback from NPS, especially responses to the open questions. We’re trying to isolate those behaviours that most affect customers, which behav-iours they respond well to, what behav-iours they compliment us on, which behaviours they complain about.

Why is it so important to look at behaviours for customer-centricity?

It’s essential to look at how we behave with customers because there is nothing more powerful than the connection between humans. It’s the way to do most damage and the way to do most good. An example: scripts. We know that customers really hate it when contact centre employees read from scripts during calls. Scripts make customers feel like we’re treating

As HR Director, Ingrid Veling knows that the real success of customer-centricity at ING Insurance lies in the behaviours of its people. Here she talks us through a viral approach culture change and tells us why this is something the organisation shouldn’t rush.

“There is nothing more powerful than the connection between humans. It’s the way to do most damage and the way to do most good.”


the customer in the form of complaints and positive feedback. To drive change you need to make it tangible for people who don’t interact with customers on a regular basis. So CEOs holding staff meetings often include a few customer stories in there. That’s why we’re trying to make sure that the people writing the speech or supporting the CEO see those customer stories and hear the voice of the customer. Customer voice can really motivate people and become a tool for change but until you hear it for yourself, it’s not real.

Won’t the behaviour of senior managers determine company-wide behaviour?

Yes of course it will go top-down. Most of ING’s CEOs are already customer-centric and have been actively on board since the start. They don’t lack passion! Every management team member takes customer calls regularly and is in close contact with NPS teams. But what we are doing now with senior leaders is helping them understand how hard it is to make change actually happen in the business. You don’t know how hard it is until you’ve tried to do it; you don’t know what barriers and boundaries you come up against. So now we regularly give our senior leaders a customer complaint to solve personally, instead of delegating it. This way they understand the detailed implications of change. But waiting for behaviours to filter down will only take us so far. Think about it, if your boss says you have to do something

differently, you do the training, complete the exercise, you tick the box, done. But not necessarily for the right reasons. We want people to want to change their behaviours and understand why. So we want customer-focused behaviour to spread virally through the organisation, that’s much more effective. That’s what our customer champions are so good at doing in their countries.

The customer champions have a tough job though?

Yes, it is difficult. They’re trying to change mindsets and practices people have been comfortable with for years and years. It is like swimming upstream. Not everyone has the energy and drive to do it but I’m sure we’ve now identi-fied the right people. We’ve worked with them a lot over the past year to help them become strong enough to cope with the challenges. We’ve also worked on their confidence, which is a vital part of their job: if you commu-nicate confidently people are more likely to follow what you say. But really that’s something that I have been most impressed with during all my years at ING, the passion, energy and strength of the people we have in ING’s regional offices. They have this amazing ‘can-do’ attitude: customer journey done, minimum standards done, gap analysis done! It really is humbling.

What are the advantages of having an international group of customer champions?

This is a natural, collaborative way for ING to work. Firstly, you have to make the most of the strengths you have and for ING, the capabilities and experience of the people in our country units is a

real asset. Choosing the champions from the country units really is a smart move. Secondly, if you work collabora-tively it helps people to connect more closely with the mission; sharing work, problems and progress with eight other countries gives each country a sense of togetherness and of ownership. Finally, bringing a diverse group of people together gives you a wider set of skills so you solve problems much quicker. You also get some big differences and passionate discussions of course, but to me that’s a sign of commitment. This is why we always get the people who have done the work to present directly to our Senior Leadership Team. We do have a central customer experience manage-ment team for support and co-ordina-tion and we have external experts such as Futurelab who have really helped us maintain our focus and channel our thoughts. But our colleagues in the countries do the actual hard work of making change happen.

Is We Care an effective way to spread customer-focused behaviour?

I think it is. When we show the We Care video, the room goes completely quiet. It’s sinking in for the first time what exactly is at the heart of ING. What are we here for? What part do we play in people’s lives? Finding this emotional core is an important moment. The industry is changing and we want to be involved in the financial education of our customers. To do that, we need to be closer to them and understanding what people need from us at different life stages is how to do it. n

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“We do have a central customer experience team for support and co-ordination and we have external experts such as Futurelab who have really helped us maintain our focus and channel our thoughts. But our colleagues in the countries do the actual hard work of making change happen.”

“Hearing a customer’s surprise, gratitude and positive feedback is when you really connect. That’s rewarding. That’s a good energy that can permanently change the way people behave.”

“Behaviours are particularly important in our line of business because our product is not what you would call a happy product.”


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taking actionTalking about customer-centricity is useless if the thinking doesn’t get embed-ded in the business: with hard KPIs and NPS targets. ING designed the gap analysis with this end-point in mind – to ensure a direct link to action. There would have been no point going through all the interviews and process-map-ping unless we came out of it with a good idea of desirable and feasible solu-tions. This also included the collection of feedback from NPS to see if custom-ers’ perceptions of shortcomings matched with ING’s own analysis. By building a picture in this way, it was possible to see actionable priorities emerging.

AMAyA MArTinez inG sPAin

G oing through the customer journey process has already

translated into a key project for us in Spain: we are building a new

self-service website. We knew that because of high turnover among our agents, customers were often feeling a little lost. Customers who lose their agent lose touch with ING and with a long-term product such as life insur-ance, that’s a problem. So this website will be a way for us to keep in touch with customers, to maintain a relation-ship independently from the agents.

units were already good at doing. These are naturally things to prioritise and reinforce, things the customer already appreciates. Part of the challenge of doing the gap analysis was talking to the right people in the business – the process ‘owners’ themselves. If anyone can come up with a solution for improving something for customers, it was them.


F rom the beginning our goal has always been to translate all our talk

into action. We never wanted it to be just a nice little analysis in a nice little book – we want it tied to our priorities. This is the most difficult phase we are moving into now and we really need to keep our energy up. If we lose focus now it will be wasted so we need to maintain the same level of engagement and effort.

MehliKA ToK inG TurKey

N PS will remain ING’s monitor of success. With each feedback

thread through NPS, we see opportu-nities to help customers navigate key life events rather than just processing transactions. We already have several examples of how NPS is measuring activity from the customer experience stream of work: ING Czech Republic re-designed its claims process to make it more agile; this led to 30% increase in their NPS Score. ING Greece offers payment options and readjusts prices for customers in difficult times; this doubled their NPS score. Similarly ING’s Polish team has revised their anniver-sary communications to be clearer and simpler and ING Turkey and Spain are building new online client portals.


A s we get into more actions, I think it’s important that we revisit the

gap analysis to check our progress. We could look at one touchpoint every quarter or every six months, just to check where the gaps still are, where we need help, what are the roadblocks, what’s stopping us? The more action we take the more important it will be to measure how well we’re doing. Did we achieve everything we planned to in this phase?


I n the end customer experience is all about the little things that go well or

not well, it’s always something opera-tional. The gap analysis process itself is a way to shortcut to activity because all of a sudden you have customer champions who know exactly how their business unit works including all the little hidden operational problems and processes. n


N ow we know what the customer journey looks like, we need to look

closely at our portfolio and work out our strategy. We know what custom-ers need at each touchpoint, so it’s a case of forging the product strategy and marketing strategy based on these needs. We also need to make sure we do not lose sight of the delight factors.

nATAlie Von FrAnKenburG FuTurelAb

W e were careful to leave enough space in the gap analysis frame-

work for people to identify not only weaknesses but also strengths. We wanted to find the things the business


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behavioursTrue customer-centricity will live or die because of employee behaviour. Most companies have a mission statement, a vision and some values. But when it comes to behaviours, people, including senior executives, are generally left to their own devices. Imagine a company that asks its employees and leaders to be professional. Then ask 10 people to describe the behaviours that would accom-pany such a statement. You’ll get 10 different answers. So even with the best of intentions, everyone ends up doing something else. ING needs to give its people tools to manage the behaviour they display towards customers. The ultimate chal-lenge then is to codify, as a group, the behaviours they associate with customer-centricity. Only when the behaviours have been described, people can actually start living them, be measured by them and be held accountable for them.


I t is hard for people to change their behaviour, but not impossible. The

funny thing is, we are all already customers in our daily lives, at home, in the supermarket, in the shops. Outside of work we are all highly sensitive about the service we get, we moan when we get bad service: we complain, we write letters, we call up, we are the biggest critics. We know what customer-focus should feel like, we know what behav-iour it requires; we are all experts – and effortlessly so. But for some reason once we come to work, we leave the shoes of the customer at the door. Inside the building we are often the ones giving customers a bad experience. I think it’s just easier sometimes to follow the rules; you can find excuses for not taking the customer-focused route. Customer-focus needs people to take some responsibility for their decisions and to be accountable. That’s scary: you might make the wrong decision. It’s safer to hide behind the memo: “It wasn’t me, it was the procedure”. We need to make it easier for people to take the customer-centric decisions. We need them to come in with their customer shoes still on. If we can do that, then one day, ING will be a company people are proud to work for.


S ome departments are not customer-facing it’s true but I

think customer-centric behaviours should go across the organisation. I strongly disagree when people say they do not know what customers need. You can find customer-focus everywhere; even people in finance, operations or IT often have an uncanny idea of what the customer wants. They don’t necessar-ily express it in the latest professional jargon or whatever, but they know. They are customers themselves. All you have to do is engage them and they’re excited, they’ve got lots to say about it. For people who are dealing with the customer on a daily basis, all you have to do is show them the customer journey and provide the link between their job, their tasks and the customer


I think we are aiming for a positive circle of employee behaviours and

satisfaction. They both drive each other. Customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction are very closely linked; if customers are happy, employ-ees are happy too.

needs. This gives small things big meaning every day. This is the best thing about customer-focus – suddenly people understand why they’re doing things. It helps them take all the right decisions, even if they seem like small things, these behaviours can have a big impact on customers.

inGrid VelinG hr direCTor inG insurAnCe inTernATionAl

I t’s essential to look at how we behave with customers because

there is nothing more powerful than the connection between humans. It’s the way to do most damage and the way to do most good.


O nce behaviours are embedded in the organisation, ING will see

customer-centricity accelerate hugely. Changing behaviours is a long-term job but there are some really positive signs that ING will achieve this. They have had the topic of customer at the top of their agenda for the last three annual conferences. They have not let it drop. They’ve invested in some fantastic champions. There is a strong commitment, a genuine belief and a willingness to keep the topic alive. Day-to-day business takes up time of course, but I do believe ING will drive this through. n

“Customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction are very closely linked; if customers are happy, employees are happy too.”


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You joined ING Insurance from ING Direct. How does the customer-focus compare?

I was a little shocked that in my first week here at head office, I didn’t hear about the customer once! That was a big change for me. My early impres-sion was that the insurance industry is still heavily product and distribu-tion focused. But I know that in the Central European region our business units have picked up the pace of

customer-centricity amazingly quickly over the last two years. I feel that it is a natural state for many of them to put the customer first; many of our people are almost uncomfortable not focus-ing on the customer! It’s an instinctive thing and that is hugely encouraging for the future.

So there’s still a long way to go?

Yes, because our ambition is high. We’ve come a long way with customer-centricity and I think we are among the best insurance compa-nies out there. But ING can go further than that. We want to go beyond best in class; we want to be world-class, on a par with the top customer-centric brands – from any industry. So when you think in these terms, I would say we are really at the start of our journey.

“There’s always the next level. We can expand customer-focus into consumer-focus and look at how ING can help society as a whole. I think we have a role and responsibility to stand alongside government at the forefront of consumer financial education.”

marIkeN tanneMaatheaD of CommerCe ING INSuraNCe INterNatIoNal

“Many of our people are almost uncomfortable not focusing on the customer!”

From an ultra customer-centric background, Mariken Tannemaat knows the insurance industry has a long way to go. She shows us just how high she has set her sights and why the business case for customer-centricity is so obvious it’s hardly worth talking about.


Yes we have our priorities, we have our strategy, the whole board has agreed and now we are just beginning to get our story out there, we’re just begin-ning to let customers know how much we care. In the next six months we are about to give customer-centricity a huge push and we will be good at executing this vision because we have the best people involved, the most passionate people. I’ve never seen NPS scores as good as the ones we’re getting in the business units in this region – and they keep getting higher.

What is the end goal?

There isn’t an end! Customer-centric-ity is a way of life not a project or a programme. I dislike the word programme. This is not something we will finish; it will just become the way we do business. Even when customer-centricity is 100% embed-ded in our business operations, there’s always more, there’s always the next level. We can expand customer-focus into consumer-focus and look at how ING can help society as a whole. I think we have a role and responsibility to stand alongside government at the forefront of consumer financial educa-tion. The human lifespan is increasing, we’re all going to be older for longer, but state pensions are getting smaller not bigger. We need to learn about our financial future and look at how we are going to support ourselves and what we will be able to pass on to our children. In many countries, we are seeing the first generation of consumers with money in their pocket and they are not thinking this way yet, but in parts of Europe it’s becoming urgent. If ING really serves the customer, we should be serving the consumer too. This really is the ‘next next’ level for ING, but I think it’s inspiring to think of this now; it gives us a long-term context for what we are doing.

What are the biggest milestones ahead?

We still pretty much have a legacy business in place; products and systems that we need to transform in order to truly put customer experience at the

heart of business operations. Funda-mental changes like that do not happen overnight but it is important to take the time and allow this deep level change and not to just scratch the surface. We need to embed customer-centricity in the foundations of the business. I know that our leaders, our CEOs believe this too. Because they have this belief, they will make it happen. The real test will be if we are willing to sacrifice some short-term gain for long-term benefits and this comes down to concrete things like accepting lower sales numbers and customer fees, how much profit you demand. So there are some big decisions for the businesses to take in the next few years. For the next few months though, the focus is getting a coherent story out there, having all our CEOs standing up and telling the same story, being really clear on our purpose, our values, our behaviours and have every person in every country connect-ing with them.

What are your thoughts on customer-centric behaviours?

We need to work towards a whole cycle of behaviour and values. These come from the top, from management. They come into the building when you hire people – you check candidates for customer-focus. They come into perfor-mance appraisals. We’re thinking very much of our brand values. We want to stand for the same thing organisation-ally and individually. So if ING is clear, open and honest, so are we. If ING is human, caring and empathetic, so are we. If ING shows commitment, respon-sibility and integrity, so do we.

What is the role of the customer champions team going forward?

In the past year, two years it has been absolutely essential to have a team of people dedicated to keeping the voice of the customer alive in every board meeting, to voice concerns, to have a programme of activity revolving around the customer. This effort and energy has kicked the whole movement off in ING and the champions are doing a tremendous job. As things develop, it becomes more of a lifestyle,

more people become more customer-focused, the role of the team will be slightly different. One day ING will be a company of customer champions. I know that is also what the champions themselves are hoping for and working towards. I think we will always need a group of frontrunners, people who have the customer front of mind, but at some point customer-centricity takes on a life of its own within the business.

Has the business case for customer-centricity been made?

There’s no debating this one. It’s not even necessary to talk about the numbers any more. There’s already a firm belief that the commercial case for putting the customer at the core is there. We know it is. Customers are our business. Since the crisis, most financial institutions have realised that we’re not in this business just for our own sake; we’re in it for our custom-ers. You shouldn’t follow the business case – follow the thing you’re passionate about. The rest will come. I updated the management team yesterday on where we are with our customer view and we didn’t even talk about the business case. Let’s just get on with making it happen!

What else has customer-centricity given the business?

I think customer-focus has released a lot of human emotion within the business. People share a single purpose and the passion and openness with which they are carrying out their mission is amazing. That feeling of ego, where people bring their own agenda to the table is just not there. I see trust and proper teamwork; it’s very refreshing. n

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“The real test will be if we are willing to sacrifice some short-term gain for some long-term benefits.”

“One day ING will be a company of customer champions. I know that is also what the champions themselves are hoping for and working towards.”


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NN is the future name of ING Insurance. How closely aligned is the new brand with the customer experience initiative?

Very closely. In developing NN, we’ve been working from exactly the same canvas as the customer experience initiative. Net Promoter sits in my team, as well as the brand, so that shows you how closely related the two streams of work are. We have gathered tons of NPS data on what keeps customers awake at night and the brand has evolved directly out of that. The brand development and the customer experience drive share the same starting point: what we’ve all been trying very hard to do is listen carefully to what matters to customers. Whenever I talk about what we really need to change about the customer experience, I give examples from the customer experience initiative to illustrate what we’re trying to do.

What brand values will underpin the new brand?

NN will be underpinned by two values: clarity and guidance. Clarity speaks to the need for clear, simple easy-to-under-stand communications. Around 80% of NPS verbatims are about this. Guidance strikes a more caring, personal note; it’s about empowering people, helping them buy with confi-dence, guiding them through financial decisions. In a day and age when all around us consumers are becoming more self-reliant and when industry trends are pointing the same way, we have a moral duty to help people. These two values have been beacons for us throughout the development of the brand – even before we had a name or a logo. The CX initiative has been invaluable in highlighting both values. On the technical, rational side, the drive to achieve the minimum standards has moved us towards clarity. On the emotional side, the notion of We Care has elicited an

emotional undercurrent within ING. It’s helped us use a more personal emotional tone than ever before and shown us that most of us go to work in the morning to do the right thing for our customers. We have that sense of purpose.

Will you use elements of the customer journey in brand communications?

It’s hard to be specific at this stage as we’re still articulat-ing the right words and find the right images to express these values. I can say that communications will be based around that emotional element: what matters to customers, matters to us. Actions speak louder than words of course, so we’re really happy that we’ve done all this work on customer experience. We’re doing things in the right sequence: trying to get it right internally, then start talking about it outside. Because we’ve safeguarded the minimum standards, we will be able to back everything up with actions. We’ll be using real proof points from the customer experience work to back up all our communications.

How unique will NN sound?

Becoming a genuinely caring brand, helping customers achieve their goals will clearly differentiate us. We want to bring the service back into financial services. This transfor-mation won’t happen through rational tools but through empathy, through feeling rather than knowing, selling insurance through confidence rather than fear. Custom-ers will tell you they don’t feel a commitment from insur-ers but that’s what they’re looking for. The groundwork that’s been done by the customer experience drive and other work streams has led us towards an exciting opportunity to reintroduce ourselves to stakeholders. n

ChrIS KerSberGenheaD of braNDING, ING INSuraNCe

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NN will be the new name for the insurance and investment management businesses of ING Group. The NN brand will incorporate Nationale-Nederlanden, ING Insurance International, ING Life Japan and ING Investment Management, who are jointly preparing to become an independent, stand-alone company, separate from ING Group. The new brand has already been shared publicly and the company looks forward to deep operational rebranding after it has been brought to market with an Initial Public Offering (IPO) in 2014. Here, ING Insurance’s Head of Branding tells us how the customer experience movement has influenced the development of the new brand.


our promISe

We MaKe CuStoMer-CentriCity happen … profitably

We know this is a big promise.

but we believe that, in today’s ultra-competitive world, it’s the only promise worth making.

after all, who still has the time or resources to commission big name consultancy reports that will never be implemented? or engage agencies to design customer ‘wow’ initiatives, which look great, but have questionable business impact?

So if you call on us, don’t expect weighty reports or fancy pitch presentations. Do expect a team of bold but pragmatic executives who’ve lived the job you’re trying to do and want to help you do it better.

Shall we talk?

call on us if you want to:

•map and manage your company’s real customer journey

•Set and implement customer experience standards

•Develop a customer culture across your company’s value chain

• Implement tools, techniques and systems which enable your business to be sustainably customer-centric

•Develop customer-centric value propositions and strategies

•Create, nurture and activate customer advocates

W: WWW.futurelab.Net e: [email protected] t: +32 2 733 8332

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Documents

CC-I3: ING Insurance: the Journey towards Customer-Centricity