1. Selling a financial product requires more and more knowledge. Customers are getting
better informed, requirements within law and regulations are getting tighter. But how to
reach your valued clients with those essential facts and figures? Not by squeezing them
into bulky manuals. What is needed is a logical system, and only offering the information
that is really needed. That’s why ABN AMRO is developing clever ‘knowledge banks’. The
aim: better advice for the customer, based on exactly the right knowledge.
ABN AMRO: the benefits
of a knowledge-based
approach
Henk Jonkers
A
t ABN AMRO, the business approach has a not a synonym for information”, explains Maas. “We use
clear focus: how can we improve our custo- knowledge technology. We can improve the quality of our
mers’ situation? “One way of achieving a service by making valuable knowledge available exactly
consistent level of quality is a more intensive where it is needed at the time. This works out as follows.
use of standardisation. And making know- Using a knowledge application has two components. On
ledge, which might be locked up within the organisation, the one hand we use it to design our knowledge-intensive
more readily available”, says Roland Maas, senior business processes, i.e. gathering the required data. We store these
manager at ABN AMRO and responsible for the Design & data inside knowledge banks, using Match™ Developer
Improvement department. “But unfortunately many know- technology. This application guarantees a transparent,
ledge-intensive processes cannot be standardised easily. focused and simple storage of knowledge. On the other
Mortgage advice and the administration when somebody hand the application is able to present the knowledge to the
passes away are good examples of this. These are personal customer. In fact this happens within the knowledge bank,
matters which require a specific understanding. That without the use of a single software engineer. The lifespan
knowledge can be found partially within our advisers’ of a knowledge bank is very short. To us that is a big plus.
heads, but it is also stored inside impressive almanacs, We are able to build a new bank in six to eight weeks. In
work instructions, intranet applications and the like. the old days that could easily take half a year.”
Digital sources can be opened up by using their search It is not only mortgages for which ABN AMRO uses
option, but that is not enough. Just think of Google. Try to Knowledge Values’ Match™ technology. The bank is plan-
find exactly what you are looking for within those 2,000 ning several more knowledge banks, which would enable
results! Sources may provide us with all the knowledge we the knowledge-based work approach elsewhere within the
need, in every possible detail, but at the same time they are organisation as well. “The knowledge application uses logi-
poorly accessible and not very customer-friendly.” cal steps”, says Maas. “Based on the customer’s information
In addition to this it takes more and more knowledge these it presents exactly the right information. The instrument
days to be a good mortgage adviser. “Just think of the also shakes every single branch of the decision tree.
requirements for our products as issued by the Autoriteit Nothing will escape the adviser’s attention.”
Financiële Markten (the Dutch government’s financial
watchdog, ed.) and the Financial Surveillance Law”, says Investigating all options, step by step
Maas. “We must be able to explain openly and precisely Following many meetings, workshops and tests ABN AMRO
how we came up with a certain piece of advice, or recom- started using a prototype of the knowledge application last
mended a particular product. ABN AMRO’s front office staff June. The bank’s mortgage advisers now use this when
have to be aware of these tight requirements and must be they meet their clients. In a pilot programme in the The
able to apply them.” Hague area the advisers now work with the application and
are testing its usability. In fact the software ‘guides’ the
Working the knowledge-based way adviser through the conversation with the customer, explo-
ABN AMRO started investigating a knowledge-based work ring all options which may apply to the customer’s personal
approach approximately two years ago. How does it fit in situation. Is this person aged over 35, with a pension age of
with the bank’s normal way of operating? “Knowledge is 65? What will his post-retirement income be? How big is

3. the risk that he can no longer afford to pay off his mort- tion, not a ‘question and answer’ game. We provide the cus-
gage? A step by step exploration of all the relevant options tomer with an overview of all things discussed and
regarding the sale of a mortgage. anything upon which we have agreed. This is another
Ron van der Ploeg, mortgage adviser in the The Hague improvement, compared with how we used to work in the
area, has been using the Knowledge Values’ application past, when it was mainly figures we sent our customers
back home with. Now we come up with a summary of the
conversation, including all the options we have discussed.”
Ronald Maas
Precisely the right knowledge
As already indicated, building a new knowledge bank using
Match™ takes approximately six to eight weeks. What does
this involve? “It’s all a bit of a journey”, says Willem
Wulffraat, management consultant for knowledge-based
work at ABN AMRO. “We take small steps, with lots of feed-
back. Quite often we organise workshops. We invite rele-
vant specialists and people who deal with everyday matters
to participate. We bring together professionals such as tax
since June. “Initially I found it all rather complicated”, he
says. “A new application means lot of changes. Many of my
colleagues were quite sceptical. You come across all sorts of
things. No home insurance? Clicking the ‘i’ symbol on the
screen provides you with an overview of all the risks invol-
ved. You get a much more comprehensive picture of the
customer.” Which is crucial, according to Van der Ploeg, as
consumers are becoming more and more demanding. Willem Wulffraat
“Often people already know a lot about our products, after
gathering information on the internet. Such advance know-
ledge increases their expectations, when they meet a mort- experts, marketing managers, lawyers and product mana-
gage adviser. You have to prove your added value.” gers, and front line workers such as mortgage advisers and
our administrative staff. Together they attempt to gather all
Not a ‘question and answer’ game the relevant knowledge needed in order to offer mortgage
So what do customers think of the new approach? “When advice. Existing manuals and work instructions play a role,
we first meet, we tell our customers that we are using a of course. But by filtering and linking information we make
new system, which will more or less guide us through the sure that our advisers and customers have access to preci-
conversation. Usually nobody objects to that. For the cus- sely the right knowledge.”
tomer it means that we won’t ignore anything relevant.”
When a computer tells you what to ask, a certain skill is Henk Jonkers is a freelance journalist
required to keep the conversation lively. In the words of This article has been published in
Van der Ploeg: “Of course it should still be a real conversa- Intellectueel Kapitaal 6-2009, www.ikmagazine.nl