The latest findings from the Roy Morgan Single Source Survey reveal the satisfaction level of personal bank customers reached its highest in eighteen years, while business bank customers levels were overall lower.
Personal customer satisfaction levels reached 82.4 per cent in September, a 0.1 rise from August. The survey points out that while overall personal satisfaction numbers were high, the big four banks’ customers with an income of $90,000 or more saw a lower satisfaction level of 74.3 per cent.
The findings, sourced from a survey of over 50,000 people and 12,000 business decision makers, found business customer satisfaction levels only reached 68.6 per cent in September, 13.8 per cent lower than personal customer levels.
“The major banks have made significant progress over the last fourteen years in improving customer satisfaction,” Norman Morris, Industry Communications Director at Roy Morgan Research, says.
“In 2000 the overall customer satisfaction level of bank customers was below 60% and this has now risen to over 80% because of a concerted effort by all the banks to improve their customer focus following the sharp downward trend in the late 1990’s.”
Morris says while banks have shown progress in customer satisfaction, they need to ensure “higher value customers” are supported or face competition from other financial institutions.
“We have seen here that the customers with the lowest satisfaction levels are the personal customers on higher incomes ($90,000 plus) and business customers. Both of these groups offer the greatest potential and yet their satisfaction levels are well below the lower value customers and are in fact back at the levels seen for the overall market that we saw five years ago.”
“The challenge for the banks is to create a clear satisfaction and advocacy leadership positioning among the higher value customers or they will face increased competition from specialised banks and other financial institutions that will focus solely on these lucrative segments.”
Among the big four banks, CBA retained a small lead with a personal customer satisfaction level of 81.1 per cent, followed by Westpac with 81 per cent, NAB with 80.8 per cent and ANZ with 79.8 per cent.
While CBA held its lead overall lead, Westpac took the lead when it came to satisfaction for Main Financial Institution (MFI) customers. September saw Westpac lead with 83.8 per cent, followed by ANZ with 82.6 per cent, CBA with 82.4 per cent and NAB with 82.1 per cent.
