Despite continuing talk of a Royal Commission, customer satisfaction with banks in the sixth months to October 2017 is at 80.6 per cent, far ahead of the long-term average of 73.9 per cent established since 2011, according to research house Roy Morgan.
Bendigo Bank came in as the most favoured bank within the report, and recorded a slight satisfaction drop from this time last year (0.9 per cent) despite retaining a high satisfaction rating of 88.5 per cent.
Bank of Queensland (BOQ) and ING were the second and third ranked banks with the most satisfied customers, with 85.6 per cent (up 2.0 per cent) for BOQ, and a drop of 3.5 per cent for ING giving it an equal 85.6 per cent rating.
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia, despite recent issues, retained its lead over the other big banks, with a drop of 2.2 per cent still leaving it with a satisfaction score of 79.5 per cent. This was slightly ahead of National Australia Bank (78.2 per cent) which also recorded a dip, and ahead of Westpac which rose 1.3 per cent to a 78.1 per cent satisfaction. ANZ dropped 0.5 per cent to a satisfaction score of 77.6 per cent.
“Over the last sixteen years most of the high visibility issues faced by major individual banks and the industry generally, have only had short term impact on customer satisfaction,” said Roy Morgan industry communications director, Norman Morris.
“A major challenge for the big four apart from closing the gap on their smaller competitors, is how to differentiate from each other in terms of customer satisfaction.
“Currently only 1.9 per cent points separates the satisfaction ratings across the big four, making it difficult for any of them to gain a clear positioning in the market on this important attribute”.
