Lianne Tollenaar

Lianne initially joined ING in the customer contact centre in Leeuwarden for a six-week project. After that project, a vacancy for a Customer Journey Expert (CJE) presented itself and she has now been working at ING for almost three and a half years. Lianne: “I enjoyed working in the customer contact centre so much that I really wanted to stay, although at first I didn’t have an entirely clear idea of what the CJE role entailed.” 

The ideal routing for customers

Lianne set to work in the ‘InteractING NL’ team, which ensures among other things that customers who contact ING by phone or video call receive the ideal ‘routing’. In other words, the customers are guided through selection menus as smoothly as possible so that they can be helped quickly and efficiently. 

“During my initial project I was primarily involved in training employees at the customer contact centre and I was their first point of contact if they had any questions. My current role as Customer Journey Expert includes that aspect too, but now I’m also involved in rolling out new projects, improving the routing and resolving incidents – all to ensure that we continue to further improve our service to customers by using increasingly sensitive and intelligent systems.”  

Sizable technology component

Lianne and her fellow CJEs work closely with the developers on the team. “Our work involves a sizable technology component – that’s something I really had to get to grips with. As a CJE, I translate questions from the business into technological solutions and that’s always tricky. Do we understand each other properly, and are we really talking about the same thing? Some of the skills I learned during my degree – such as conversation techniques – come in very handy in that respect.”  

Pleasantly unpredictable

Lianne is based in Leeuwarden but the rest of her team is based in Amsterdam, which can be challenging – not to mention the fact that the team is very international, plus everyone is still working exclusively from home. “Although I miss the interaction with my colleagues, our collaboration is very smooth. I enjoy working with the team on a project refinement, for example. When we successfully complete a big assignment, it gives me a lot of energy. Our work is also very varied and I love the degree of unpredictability that creates. It’s rewarding to be able to resolve issues and streamline processes for our customers. In a nutshell, ING is simply a great company to work for. Despite my somewhat unconventional background, I feel completely at home here.”