“Ask what’s wrong and how we can fix it”

“Ask what’s wrong and how we can fix it”

Each week, ING Bank Slaski invites a few thousand people who recently carried out a transaction with the bank to fill out a survey about how they value the service of the bank.

Net Promoter Score

One of the key elements of the Net Promoter Score is to gather feedback and to use this to improve products and services. Long multiple-choice questions are taboo here. ING’s survey is easy: five to six questions which only require two to three minutes to complete. Since the end of 2010, around 180,000 customers have had their say.

Identify the areas to improve

Plenty of feedback is pouring in. “The feedback we receive helps us to identify what we’re good at and what should be improved”, says Edyta Orzelek, ING Bank Slaski’s Net Promoter Score (NPS) coordinator. What is the most important thing when you deal with customers?
“I must look at our products from a customer point of view”, answers Orzelek. “I have to know our processes very well in order to identify the areas to improve. I also have to be in daily contact with my colleagues from other departments to explain which changes are the most important to increase customer satisfaction. Everybody is engaged in solving issues and implementing changes. This year, we’re trying to listen even more attentively to what our customers have to say. But we not only tap into NPS surveys, there is also other research, especially satisfaction studies, benchmarks as well as deep-dive analyses.”

From detractors…

“The first thing we look for is customers that submitted negative feedback, the so-called ‘detractors’. We aim to contact our strongest detractors within 48 hours, asking them what’s wrong, and how we can fix the problem,” explains Orzelek.

The effort has paid off: the number of detractors has been falling steadily since 2010. “It’s a great feeling when you realize that changes based on customers’ feedback really work. For instance, we have introduced business cards for new customers. This card contains important information, such as the contact details of ING. We have also introduced a short instruction for the first log-in to the online banking site and provided information about the expiry date of an activation code to ING Bank Online on envelopes with a code. We have noticed that each change helps us to increase the number of satisfied customers and proves that we are on the right track.”

... to promoters

The surveys show that the vast majority of customers are happy with ING Bank Slaski – recognized as ‘promoters’. They favour ING’s reliability, trustworthiness, honesty and tradition. Nevertheless, the listening and learning never stop. Each year, new transactions are surveyed.

Focus

In 2011 the focus of the NPS surveys was opening an account and processing complaints; in 2012 the focus was on mobile banking and this year it will be finding out what customers think of ING Bank Slaski’s savings accounts and service quality in the branches.

“We already know a lot about our main products and services,” says Orzelek, “but every time we introduce a new product, change our fees, or introduce something else, we have an opportunity to find out more.”

What does Net Promoter Score stand for?

For several years, ING has been using the Net Promoter Score (NPS) method to measure customer satisfaction and loyalty. Initially a novelty, it is now widely applied in most countries where ING is active. In the May issue of ing.world, we spoke with Alessio Tagini, the man responsible for NPS within ING Retail Banking International.