Satisfaction among business banking customers has slipped again over the month of December, falling further below that of personal customers, the latest Roy Morgan Research Consumer and Business Banking Satisfaction Survey found.
Despite recording only a minor fall (0.2 per cent) to end December at 64.3 per cent, business satisfaction once again stood in stark contrast to the 78.4 per cent satisfaction reported for personal customers.
According to Roy Morgan industry communications director Norman Morris, business itself is marginally confidant but "the situation is volatile and only around 50 per cent think that the next 12 months would a good time to invest in growing the business".
"In this uncertain business environment, the banks and their clients are less likely to wish to expand their lending and borrowing and may not pass the full interest rate cuts on to their customers," he added.
The report found satisfaction among the major institutions was led by Westpac (67.7 per cent), followed by National Australia Bank and Commonwealth Bank each on 63.4 per cent. Both these banks reported an increase and were followed by ANZ on 61.9 per cent.
Westpac, in particular, scored highly across all three segments: specifically, micro (annual turnover less than $1 million); small ($1-$5 million); and medium- to -large ($5 million-plus) businesses. CBA scored highest in the medium- to large -segment, while ANZ ranked last across all three.
Roy Morgan also noted that Westpac had the highest satisfaction of the big four across all product areas, in particular the satisfaction level with 'relationship manager/business banker' where it scored 74.2 per cent. This compares to CBA, which posted a score of 64.3 per cent.
"Business customers rate very poorly their banks' ability to maintain regular contact and show a real interest in their customers' industry," Morris said.
He said providing a better service to micro-business customers, and improvements in the area of relationship management across all segments, would likely have a positive impact on customer satisfaction.
"The big gap between satisfaction of the major banks' personal and business customers is probably an indication in this uncertain economic environment that more focus is on the relative safety of the personal bank customers than the perceived higher-risk business customers," he said.
