Don't be offended if your online bank "fires" you

[manlymatt83]

Where was the speech?

 

[kranky]

Originally posted by: mjuszczak
Where was the speech?

A conference in Boston.

 

[jadinolf]

Originally posted by: Mike

Originally posted by: kranky
I was at a speech by the president of ING Direct the other day and he shared some interesting insights into their success.

Their strategy is to be more like a retailer than a bank. They offer just 8 financial products to keep things simple. They want using the web site to be simple. All of this is to keep costs down. All the "experts" told them they were making a big mistake by not pushing other products onto online customers like the other banks do, but ING found from their own research that customers want to be on and off the site in 15 seconds, so they keep their site very basic. In fact, they feel their growth is largely based on the simplicity of their operation. He pointed out that ING is consistently rated as the worst web site by industry metrics, which only points out that the industry has no clue what customers really want. When the experts ask people what they want in an online banking site, they come up with a long list of fancy requirements. What actual customer behavior shows is they prefer a very simple site.

They are getting 100,000 new customers a month, nearly half from word-of-mouth referrals from existing customers, so they believe they are doing things right. But they are also "firing" between 2,000 to 5,000 customers every month as well (meaning ING has chosen to close the account). This is done when a customer is too costly and too demanding; in other words, the customer calls and emails too much.

If someone is going to be a whiney bitch, kick 'em to the curb. :thumbsup:

:thumbsup:

<------------------nor whiny

 

[TallBill]

Originally posted by: erub

Ah the famous 90/10 rule, 90% of your complaints come from 10% of your customers (or in this case, 2-5% of your customers). I've only had to call ING once since I got them maybe 7 years ago, to change my phone number (weird it couldn't be done online).

Way way less then 2-5%

 

[SoulAssassin]

Originally posted by: ColdFusion718

Originally posted by: SoulAssassin
They "fired" me recently. Had like $40 in the account and they transferred it into another account I had linked. Doesn't really matter to me, I was just waiting to see if they would offer a promo for a higher rate anytime soon, their rates suck these days.

LOL you had $40 in there and you want a higher promo rate?

The point was if they started offering a better rate I would transfer money from elsewhere. Ifigured that was kinda self-explanatory.

 

[SoulAssassin]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: SoulAssassin
They "fired" me recently. Had like $40 in the account and they transferred it into another account I had linked. Doesn't really matter to me, I was just waiting to see if they would offer a promo for a higher rate anytime soon, their rates suck these days.

Where do you keep your money? HSBC?

No, as I documented in a previous thread, the money I would have lost in transfers time (+-3 days) would have meant that I would have netted just a few dollars to get the 6% promo. Liquid funds are with WTDirect....Wilmington Trust which is a pretty large B&M bank in Delaware. 5.26% on balances over 10K. And I have a couple thousand still with Emigrant @ 5.05.

Then why is ING's interest rate so behind the times? I have an ING account because at one time their interest rates were good. They aren't now so I only keep about 25 bucks in there.

Because ING's mortgage business is growing very, very slowly. Therefore they don't want to bring in more deposits because they can't loan them out. Being a for-profit company, they obviously need to be able to get a higher return on the money than they're giving you.

Were you not using it at all?

I opened it after their last promo was done, dumped like $20 plus the $25 opening and just waited to see if they'd offer another promo anytime soon so the acct would be open and ready to go.

Let me see if I still have the letter the sent me.

 

[pulse8]

I wish their Roth IRA part of the web site was more comprehensive.

 

[alkemyst]

well in the mortgage business I will say there are far more of our less profitable/lower income level customers that practically expect us to make miracles. While you are trying your hardest to get them approved, even at an underage....they act as if they walked their deal would affect your bottom line.