Stephan Schroeders & Linda Daamen (ABN AMRO): “Our ideal is to always be relevant”

ABN AMRO is the winner of the most recent WUA customer experience study of online orientation on taking out a loan in The Netherlands (article in Dutch). Stephan Schroeders is Head of eCommerce Productgroups Lending & Mortgages at ABN AMRO, and Linda Daamen is Online Sales Specialist at the same bank. A talk about digital banking and digital transformation, Tikkie, and the role of data and agile working.

Congratulations! You are the winner of this WUA customer experience study of online orientation on taking out a loan. How important is it for you to be the best?
Stephan Schroeders: “Of course we’re very happy as a team. But for us the most important thing is that our visitors think that we are the best. As a bank, our aim is to provide the best possible service. Online service provision plays a very important role in this, of course, also when it comes to lending.”

Linda Daamen: “So we make sure that we are easy to find, communicate clearly, and offer valuable advice to customers so they know in advance what they are getting. We try to improve on this every day, because we want to remain the best in people’s eyes.”

You scored highest of all providers. What is going so well for you?
Schroeders: “Since the launch of the Digital Banking department over a year ago, there has been much more focus on putting the customer first, e-commerce, online and mobile developments, and the question of what online banking will look like in the future. Approximately 140 professionals are working on this on a daily basis. The e-commerce teams were assembled in such a way that all disciplines are represented, so they can quickly respond to changes and run the online store.”

Daamen: “So we’re really into agile working. In addition, we work closely with specialists from other teams in the areas of search, UX, analytics, social, media purchases and targeting, e-mail marketing, et cetera. This collaboration has really improved the quality of our work!”

What is the role of customer research and customer focus in your daily work?
Daamen: “New developments and improvements are driven by customer insights we obtain from data and customer research. This is something we are continually working on. Our data analyst analyses website statistics on a daily basis, but also looks at CRM data in order to get an end-to-end picture of our visitors and online customers. We also use insights from other channels, and we aim for Customer Effort Score (CES) and NPS. We also have access to our own UX Lab which is, like us, located in the Digital House.”

Schroeders: “A nice example of the use of customer insights, is that we know that many customers have a need for personal advice. For this reason we’ve arranged the online application path in such a way that customers can also come to the branch to speak to a qualified advisor. We believe this adds value for customers, but also to the online channel. We also see that our site is visited by people who aren’t ABN AMRO customers; these visitors can also come to ABN AMRO for a loan, and we welcome them!”

What is your biggest digital challenge?
Schroeders: “For the product of lending we know that the customer reaches several touchpoints on their customer journey, and that not just the online, but also the ‘human’ channel is part of this. Our goal is to make things as easy as possible for customers online, so they can arrange as many things as possible themselves digitally. In order to achieve this, we need to accelerate the digital transformation and, in addition to a lot of focus on e-commerce, work on further digitalisation of existing processes and simplifying our (lending) products. All this is a rather big and complex challenge, because such a transformation doesn’t happen automatically and it takes time.”

Daamen: “Reaching people with the right message at the right time, that is my big challenge as an online sales specialist. The ideal is to always be relevant. Of course we haven’t fully achieved this yet, but the growth in technical possibilities is taking us a step further each time. We have much better targeting capabilities, so we can be a lot more relevant. This development will continue for a while. The challenge in digital is to give extremely personal custom advice online, so customers no longer have doubts and will make the right choice.”

How do you view service in relation to sales? Could service eventually become the new sales?
Schroeders: “You can’t separate sales and service in the complete customer journey a customer makes. As a bank we need to perform well on all parts of this journey. By giving good advice in advance, but also after having purchased our products, so customers will remain satisfied with the loan they have taken out. This is the only way you can retain their confidence and bind customers for a longer period of time.”

Daamen: “Of course our mobile app and internet banking are important service channels for us as well. These enable our customers to understand and manage their finances. And people really appreciate that. Good service is essential, and it definitely makes it easier to sell our products.”

Are there any cool things in the making at ABN AMRO within your focus area? What digital innovations are you working on?
Schroeders: “The innovations we’re currently focusing on are mainly to do with the process after the loan application via the online channel. This process must be clear and happen quickly, because customers simply expect this from us. The online application via internet banking, where the customer gets a quote immediately, will also be optimised and simplified further. And… we recently launched the Tikkie app which allows you to ask your friends for money back via WhatsApp!”