See any Westpac customers walking around with a smile? The bank emerged as top of the rankings for Roy Morgan Research's October Bank Satisfaction report out of the big four banks, for the first time in a decade.
According to Roy Morgan, Westpac reached satisfaction levels of 81.5% for its personal customers, the first time in 10 years it has hit the top ranking. It is closely followed by Commonwealth Bank at 81.2%, NAB at 81.0% and ANZ at 79.9%.
Roy Morgan industry communications director Norman Morris told AdNews customer satisfaction is measured by a range of dimensions, including in-store customer service, being transparent and making customers feel valued. He said since roughly 2005, the banks have all emerged from satisfaction levels of around the 50% mark by improving internal programs and customer service.
“It's probably what happens in the branches and online and all the points of contact,” Morris said. “But all four big banks are basically dead-even at the moment.”
“When you look long term, in the late '90s they were closing branches, reducing staff and all that sort of stuff. It was crashing down, satisfaction hit a real low in about 2000. Then they started concentrating more on the customer and now they're all fighting for the same position.”
While the report found that Westpac was the “clear leader” for business customers at 72.3%, the big four all showed much lower levels of satisfaction compared to their personal customers.
The data showed that the biggest gap is for ANZ, where business customers are 15.8% points behind its personal customers. Westpac has the smallest gap, with business customers 9.2% points behind.
“The much lower satisfaction levels of business customers remain a problem and should become an increasing focus of the major banks, as we have seen over the past decade with personal customers,” Morris said.
As part of its “more versus less” campaign, NAB released a TVC this month targeting small business customers.
NAB general manager for small business David Bannatyne said the pledge was a powerful commitment to Australian business by Australia’s biggest business bank.
“NAB is the biggest backer of Aussie small business and our message is that there are great opportunities out there for businesses to grow right now.”
Outside of the big four, Bendigo Bank has followed suit with its “Bigger than a Bank” campaign and Bankwest with its “In Good Company” campaign.
For more news:
NAB is banking on small business
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