Marketing In The News Week 1: Free Money?

Imagine a world where you are rewarded for an inconvenience a company/business has put on you. Well, you can stop imagining. ING Group, a Dutch multinational banking and financial services corporation located in the Netherlands takes a bold yet confident step forward in customer service.

Waiting on hold for customer service is something that everyone tries to avoid. You become more and more uncertain for how long you will be glued to the phone for every passing minute of cliche jazz in your ear. However, ING Group has left me awe-struck with their new customer service based campaign. I found ING's tactic interesting because it shows the boundaries they are willing to break to keep you, the client, happy.

At the top of the article, it showcases a video for the celebration of the new campaign. In the video, a gas station clerk pranks customers by charging them a "waiting tax" for waiting in line. The reactions were hilarious and immediate. At the end of the video, ING explains that starting on September 28 they will be the first bank to pay customers for waiting on hold. The amount? 60 cents for every minute!

The purpose of this campaign is congruent with their value proposition, "the bank that invests in me."

ING is simply showing how much a customer's time is appreciated by not wanting to waste even a minute of it. This really raises the bar for customer service around the world, making it almost difficult to compete with. How will other banking companies in the area compete? Copying this strategy would be unoriginal, so I imagine other bank's marketing teams are scrambling for a solution. 

Sacha Lacroix, managing director at Rosapark explains that "Wait time has become as important an issue as money for people." So in turn, this unique marketing approach has killed two birds with one stone as well as "bring[ing] the brand's promise to life."

To be honest, if I were the brand manager for ING Group, I don't think I would have thought up this genius solution. It's very creative as well as a game-changing move that almost forces other brands to follow suit. From this article, I learned that there is no limit to customer service satisfaction, and a customer's time spent at your company is priceless. 

Article link: https://adage.com/creativity/work/ing-pay-your-wait/950871

ING Group "Who we are" page: https://www.ing.com/About-us/Profile/ING-at-a-glance.htm