Three Lessons from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Today I discovered the newly launched Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) website.  I must say that I like the approach.  Set aside your skeptical industry opinions for a moment.  There is a critical similarity between debt collectors and the CFPB, and I think a lesson we can take here.

The stated goal of the CFPB website is interaction with the public; gather comments and feedback, and start dialogue.  Isn’t that what debt collectors want also?  Look at how they are doing that…this is not your father’s (or even your brother’s) government — or even corporate — website.

Lesson One

Check out this page http://www.consumerfinance.gov/the-bureau/staff-profiles/, where they list the seven key people charged with getting things going.  They have really straight forward and accessible titles, and a simple explanation in plain English of the spirit of what they intend to accomplish.  It’s not written like a highfalutin mission statement in a way that nobody actually speaks.  This is cool.

Lesson Two

The website is “YOU” focused, vs. “US” focused.  This is one of the toughest concepts for businesses to grasp.  I’m guilty of it too.  The old thinking centers around an internal dialogue like, “You’ve come to my website, now let me tell you about me.  You have needs, challenges, and problems to solve?  Cool, then you’ll want to know more about me.  I offer these services, these features, these benefits. What, you are unique?  Well, no need to fear, we’ve boiled down our descriptions so that they will apply to absolutely anyone, so the good news is that we haven’t counted you out!”

The CFPB site shifts that dialogue to one that focuses on the visitor and their direct needs, and most interestingly, their needs in their own words.

Lesson Three

They make it easy to comment, tweet or share the information.  They let people communicate in current ways.

And then there’s this: they film video responses to some of the feedback/questions (http://www.consumerfinance.gov/openforsuggestions/ — scroll down).  I’m not seeing anything too earth-shattering in these responses; they’re pretty general.  But what I like is that you see the face, the body language, the physical space of the individuals in charge.  You can begin to make a personal connection, which makes you more apt to interact with the person like a human being.

Don’t collection agencies want to generate productive dialogue with consumers?  Don’t we wish consumers would be more inclined to view collectors as human beings too, so they’re not so on the defensive?

So many corporate websites look like unwelcoming fortresses.  I think we can do better, and I think there is a bottom-line business case to be made for the effort.

Stephanie is president of Kaulkin Media and publisher of insideARM.com. She can be reached by email.