Customer experience
Our mission is to support and inspire people to be one step ahead in life and business. In everybody’s life, roles in the society change: from a child, to student, parent, business person, Bank employee, our vendor or employee of another company until retiree. This is a certain trip during which clients will make various important private and business choices. We, as a Bank, help them in taking the best financial decisions for them. That is why we share knowledge and provide tools to our clients as well as solutions that are simple, useful and suited to their needs. We make them better understand their own financial situation.
As promised, we offer simple and understandable Banking, we are available at any time and place, we support and inspire and we keep enhancing our products and services. Therefore, we approach our client service and experience in a comprehensive manner, offering both Banking products and services and services that go beyond traditional Banking.
Customer Opinion
It is important that the experience we deliver to our customers is not accidental. It is to respond to our clients’ needs. Sometimes it should be a positive surprise for clients.
Our actions:
- we analyse clients’ opinions from various sources: online banking, Echo, social media, e-mails, NPS,
- we make reports and publish a newsletter for retail entities,
- we propose modifications to products, services, processes and in communication with clients,
- we support and monitor the implementation of the proposed modifications,
- we develop tools for efficient collection and management of retail clients’ opinions,
- we automate the analysis of feedback from clients.
Complaints
Complaint handling is another opportunity for us to develop relationships with our clients and to offer positive experience to them. Complaints are reviewed in a dedicated unit – Client Service Centre – TeamING. Additionally, in certain instances, employees receiving complaints are entitled to review complaints positively at registration. In 2019, we reviewed 15% of complaints in that mode.
Customers may file complaints:
- by phone – a dedicated infoline,
- by e-mail – messages sent over Moje ING and the chat,
- in writing by – letters sent to a dedicated address of the Bank,
- personally – at any bank outlet of our Bank.
PACE methodology
PACE is ING’s own methodology to develop new products and services for clients and with clients. We have been carrying out project in accordance with the methodology since 2016. As a result, we are able to launch solutions that respond to our clients’ actual needs since we involve clients in the development process of products and services. We also apply the methodology when working on enhancements of what we have already been offering to customer, e.g. in payments. So far we have completed 80 initiates and implemented 50 solutions.
Po prostu [just like that]
The language of finances is among the least understandable gobbledegooks. It creates a distance, sometimes raises our anxiety. However, all of us – as clients and citizens – may not lose time for Bankish. We wish to understand what we read and take informed financial decisions.
Plain language for us means for instance omitting redundant words, difficult grammatical structures or terms that evoke associations with bureaucratic language. That is why for 6 years we have been simplifying communication at our Bank under the Po prostu project which has been evolving all the time and now covers all areas in the Bank.
Apart from written communication, we also look at spoken communication. Our specialists at bank outlets and in the infoline have already departed from artificial and specialist language. We are committed to naturalness and we get adjusted to our clients. And we know it works.
We keep reviewing our communication. In 2019, we started a review Między nami [Between us] – thus we learn if our Bank's teams write to customers using plain language.
Our target is automation – that is why we have developed Prostomat. This is the first tool in Poland which not only diagnoses texts but it also translates texts from “Bankish” into human language – like the Google translator. Our employees are provided with ready-made simplified texts and they have more time to focus on other things – e.g. simplification of processes themselves.
As a result of the survey Między nami and Prostomat, we have increased the scale of communication simplification – in compliance with the standard of ING plain language – by 13 pp.
We also popularise the trend of plain language in Poland. In November, we organised a conference “Plain language makes a difference”. We have invited representative of companies and public institutions that wish to have their communication simple and transparent to recipients. We are happy to have hosted supporters of plain language – irrespective of their profession. That was a good time to share experiences and good practices.
New role of bank outlets – a meeting place
2019 was a year in which we prepared all of our employees responsible for customer service to perform their tasks in line with a specialisation-based model. Under that model, each specialist selected one specialty area on which they would focus in terms of developing their competences and customer service skills; the specialty areas were as follows:
- daily banking,
- mortgage loans,
- investments, and
- entrepreneurs.
As at the end of 2019, we had 317 bank outlets, or meeting places, including 147 with modern cash service (cash available only in ATMs, CDMs, and dual machines). All of our meeting places are equipped with self-banking zones where clients can deposit and withdraw money on their own. We continue the process of retail outlets modernisation. As part of the process, we change the furnishings and interior design, and introduce new functional solutions.
As at the end of 2019, 287 of our meeting places were furnished according to the new standard. Currently, we continue our optimisation activities by relocating and consolidating outlets in the most attractive locations (in business terms) in the individual cities and regions.
Clients with disabilities
Electronic and mobile banking
We keep striving at ING Bank Śląski to propose internet banking to our customers that would be useful for all. The actions we take do not result from legal regulations.
Persons with mobility impairment may use the Moje ING transactional service (main page, menu, transaction history and transaction execution) with tabs, arrows and enter. They are supported with a blue frame around the element that is active. People with visual impairment are provided with an alternative contrast version. Users may select the view when login to Moje ING.
We are working on implementing a new website, which will be fully adapted to WCAG requirements.
The Moje ING mobile application relies on a responsive version of the Moje ING system so all enhancements made to the Moje ING transactional service apply also to the mobile application. Moje ING transactional service (main page, menu, transaction history and execution) is available for the blind with screen readers (VoiceOver for iOS and TalkBack for Android). As a result, the application may be handled with the swipe method moving a finger on the screen without looking at it.
For several years we have been cooperating with the Widzialni Foundation. For several months now the Foundation has been analysing selected functionalities of Moje ING for compliance with the WCAG guidelines. The principles tell us what to do so that the service is available to everybody, irrespective of disability, age, device or software used. The analysis covers most popular Banking sub-pages, like transfers, main page, history.
Bank outlets
We are striving to make our bank outlets accessible to everyone, including those with disabilities or those who visit us with prams We design the interior to suit their needs and we eliminate barriers. We managed to accomplish the planned target and by the end of 2019 98% of our bank outlets had no architectonic barriers at entry or were equipped with facilities to enable clients enter bank outlets assisted by an employees – 91% of bank outlets have no architectonic barriers, 7% of bank outlets have barriers eased with collapsible rails and installation of paging bells (access to a bank outlets by handicapped people requires assistance by an ING employee).
In all our bank outlets clients have access to a sign language interpreter using the Migam application that is available on the telephones of our professionals.
Additionally, specialists assist everybody who may need it to open an account over the Internet, file a loan application or make a transfer. They also teach clients how to navigate in electronic Banking and step by step show various operations that clients can execute at home.