KEY POINTS:
Banks are satisfying their customers more than they were a year ago, but the biggest gain has been among the lowest value customers, a new survey shows.
Satisfaction levels reported by customers of the five major banks in the year to September increased by 3 percentage points to 75.9 per cent, research consultancy Roy Morgan said today.
The highest level of improvement, at 7.5 percentage points, was among the 20 per cent of customers who had the least dollar value to banks.
Satisfaction among the most valuable 20 per cent was up 2.2 percentage points, while for the second most valuable 20 per cent it rose 1.4 percentage points.
Satisfaction levels for the five banks individually and for Kiwibank converged during the year to the 70 to 80 per cent band, with Kiwibank just on top.
The biggest improver during the year was ANZ, up 6.1 percentage points to 74.3 per cent, followed by Westpac, which rose 4.9 percentage points to 71.8 per cent, Roy Morgan said.
Despite the improvement, the two remained the second lowest and lowest scoring, respectively, among the five majors.
Of all the institutions in the survey, top place went to TSB Bank, which slipped 2.3 percentage points during the year but was well above the big five at 91.3 per cent.
Paul Epplett, head of Roy Morgan's New Zealand operations, said the convergence of satisfaction scores among the major banks during the past year showed most of the major financial institutions were now providing a similar level of customer service as their rivals.
"Only TSB has managed to create a satisfaction profile for itself different to the market and the challenge for them is to continually meet or exceed the elevated expectations of their clients."
- NZPA
