NEW YORK – A new customer satisfaction survey to be published today finds that credit unions provide the most satisfying online banking experience.
The survey, conducted by ForeSee Results, found that credit unions have a total satisfaction score of 84, while the biggest five banks provide the least satisfying experience, but still have an average score of 80 out of 100, which is considered high. The big five’s lower scores are attributed to the disruption in service caused by the continuing consolidation of the big banks, and a lower trust factor tied to their exposure to the Wall Street crisis.
The survey found that online banking satisfaction declined from last year, but continues to outpace satisfaction for customer service in general.
It also found that increasing the convenience of online banking, the simplicity of the website and the usefulness of the website will provide the greatest return on investment.
Another key finding was that penetration of mobile banking is still relatively low.
“As has been the case in every year of this study, credit unions provide their customers with the most satisfying experience, beating out all other categories. Not surprisingly, the general conservative approach to banking that credit unions use in their business model also produce the highest trust score,” said the author, Larry Freed, CEO of ForeSee Results.
“Credit unions don’t have better websites, better products, or better services, and yet their customers are more satisfied,” wrote Freed. “If their success could be purely attributed to the personalized attention and service customers feel they provide, then why aren’t regional and local banks performing as well? The top five banks, which have the most resources, the widest variety of products and services, and the most website functionality, are the lowest scoring.”
The survey also found that 75% of online banking customers use one or more of the social media websites, with Facebook by far the most popular at 62% and YouTube with 25%.
The survey was conducted among almost 3,000 respondents during April among subscribers of Forbes.com, which owns ForeSee Results, and online panelists from FGI Research.
The survey found that negative publicity matters. “Regardless of the bank size,” wrote Freed, “when a customer hears negative news about his or her primary bank, it affects his or her perception of the bank performance and satisfaction.” The larger the bank, the greater likelihood that a negative article surfaced about the bank and was read by a customer: 35% of customers of the top five banks had seen a negative news article.
For credit unions only 2% of customers [members] had seen a negative news article about their credit union in the last six months, compared to 3% for community banks; 7% for large banks; 16% for top 6-10 banks and 35% for top five banks.
Only 5% of credit union members said their trust in their institution had fallen over the past year, compared to 6% of customers for community banks; 8% for large banks; 9% for top 6-10 banks and 15% for top five banks.
Credit unions had an 87 trust score, compared to 82 for community banks; 79 for large banks; 78 for banks 6-10; and 72 for top five banks.
