financial services

ING CEO On Customers: More Dating, Less Marriage

ING Arkadi Kuhlmann is on a mission to bring saving money back in style. As CEO of ING Direct, he has done that by making "saving" enticing: his stores -- and he is outspoken on this point: they aren't banks, they are stores -- make people want to visit, with cafes, lounges, and the occasional Harley. What does that have to do with banking? "Nothing," he said. The bottom line: great customer experience is everything. "At the end of the day, it's not what we do at ING Direct, it's what we stand for."

Speaking Wednesday at the Conference Board in New York, Kuhlmann gave a wide-ranging speech about the company and how it has, from the start, made it part of its skin and bones to avoid complexity, arcana, tier systems that reward wealthier customers, credit cards, awards, points, etc. It appears to work, as the company now has $90 billion in assets and is the No. 1 savings bank in America.

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The vision of the company is to lead Americans back to savings. "We want to make savings cool, and in a lot of categories, saving is not cool. Generally, what we do in our category is the direct opposite of what everyone else is doing."

Kuhlmann said that a basic metaphor and driving principal for him -- and, by extension, for his company -- is his own meager clothes rack, reflecting his mother's exhortation that he never have more than ten suits and don't buy a new one unless you are ready to retire one.

He said the same holds for marketing, particularly in the financial services arena, which he says has become bloated with "solutions" that distance customers from employees. "I want marketers who can help me put stuff out, not bring stuff in," he said. "Find me people who can do things with less -- who can shorten the message. Find me someone who knows how to strip it down to bare essentials."

By the way, Kuhlmann feels the same way about customers. He disparaged the services-industry sacred cow adage about the unhappy customer being the company's fault. He said a significant number of customers will always be unhappy, and they will always complain and castigate the brand.

"I'm more interested in firing customers every month than getting new ones," he said. "You want customers who love you, not ones that cause problems. So cleaning up the customer base is good. Get them out of the store, out of the restaurant, off the Web pages, off the phone, out of your life."

To make the point, Kuhlmann asked attendees to remember a great family gathering and then a horrific one. "I'm not clairvoyant, but I'm guessing that at the second one Uncle Bob showed up, right? He put a killer into the program. Get rid of Uncle Bob."

Also kept out are people who have over a million in cash to deposit in a single account -- an effort, said Kuhlmann, to focus the brand on some 270 million "Main Street" consumers. "We want to keep rich people out. They are, by definition, a pain," he said.

He attacked the idea that marketers are obliged to build relationships with customers. "I don't want a relationship. If you want a relationship, get a dog. It should be more like dating and less like marriage. Translate for marketers: why marry anything? Stay short and sweet and just date your customers."

Kuhlmann said ING Direct has also attacked the sinkhole of 800 numbers by not outsourcing call centers, and not using automated phone-line hierarchies.

"We don't have call centers outside the U.S. because customers don't like it. And the fact is -- most people hate 800 numbers. I have never seen anyone who says 'I love an 800 number.' So we have a live person answer the phones." He said that 41% of ING Direct customers come by word of mouth.

"You can't get that if you don't have people saying positive things about you. You don't get that with a brochure. The people in sales get measured on the positive experiences, not the volume. Stop scripting people. Tell them to build the 'wow' experience, not volume." Kuhlmann said 61% of customers are on Facebook, 31% are on LinkedIn, 11% on MySpace, and 9% on Twitter.

The company takes the same contrarian approach to branding, according to Kuhlmann, with pithy, sometimes risqué, copy ("Bank fees are the sand in your swimsuit." "Dear spending, it's not you. It's me.") And outré things like sponsoring movies on the beach, taking over subway rides, hot air balloon contests, and wrapping cars orange.

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