Commonwealth Bank approval undeterred by scandals

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has emerged a winner for customer satisfaction, with 82.2 per cent of its customers considering it their main financial institution (MFI) despite it being embroiled in scandals and bad publicity. 

The June 2014 Roy Morgan Research Finance Single Source survey showed CBA also has the largest portion of customers who are high advocates at 52.6 per cent, albeit not in their financial planning arm. 

This was followed by National Australia Bank (NAB) at 48.4 per cent, ANZ (45.6 per cent) and Westpac (45.5 per cent). 

The recent scandals do not seem to have dampened approval ratings, with an 82.1 per cent satisfaction score for all of CBA’s customers, and 96.1 per cent among high advocates. 

But it was second tier Bendigo Bank that stood out for customer satisfaction, with an 87.3 per cent satisfaction score.   

Bendigo Bank was also highest when it came to good word of mouth, with 63.2 per cent being high advocates and rating it eight, nine or 10 out of 10.  

This is well head of its next closest rival Suncorp, with 55.7 per cent of high advocate customers, and an 88.2 per cent customer satisfaction score. 

Meanwhile a total of 64.2 per cent of Bendigo Bank’s MFI customers are high advocates. 

For Bankwest, 59.4 per cent of its MFI customers are high advocates, compared to 52.4 per cent of its total customers. 

“The comparatively higher levels of customer satisfaction for the smaller banks show the benefit by having more customers as high advocates,” Roy Morgan Research industry communications director Norman Morris said. 

“It is also important for banks to identify which of their customers are high advocates, and in particular assess whether their high value customers are recommending their institution.”