Westpac falls short in business banking reputation: Roy Morgan
Despite posting consistently higher satisfaction ratings than its big four counterparts, Westpac has reported the lowest overall reputation score among business customers, according to Roy Morgan's latest business survey.
The scores are constructed by subtracting negative responses from positive responses across five measures of bank reputation among all businesses. These include reputation, performance, quality, price competitiveness and value, Roy Morgan stated.
As at the last quarter, Westpac's reputation score was 119.1, falling short of ANZ (119.5), National Australia Bank (121.7), Commonwealth Bank (122.6) and its subsidiary St George (121.9), the report found.
Suncorp had the lowest reputation score (115.6) of the six major business banking brands, Roy Morgan stated.
Despite this, business customer satisfaction scores were led by Westpac (67.9 per cent) in the six months to February 2013, with CBA, NAB and ANZ scoring 64.4, 62.8 and 60.4 per cent, respectively.
Roy Morgan director of business research Nigel Smith said the disconnect between Westpac's satisfaction and reputation scores does not appear to stem from any one cause, as the bank is generally lower than its major competitors across perceived reputation, quality, price and value for money.
"Boosting the bank's external reputation — while maintaining current business customers' satisfaction — should be the highest priority for Westpac's marketing and communication teams," he said.
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