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Improving the customer-service experience for potential and existing customers may help financial institutions improve customer loyalty and differentiate their debit card rewards from those of competitors, concludes a new report from the Mercator Advisory Group. The report "Reexamining Debit Rewards at the Top Fifty Banks" found several customer-service related issues when inquiring about banks' debit rewards. Elisa Athonvarangkul, principal analyst and author of the report, randomly contacted the customer-service departments at several of the Top 50 banks and encountered a number of problems. "Some financial institutions were better than others," Athonvarangkul tells CardLine sister publication ATM&Debit News. "It got frustrating at times when certain financial institutions asked for an account number to get to the main menu." She also had trouble connecting to a live operator but was greeted with more frustration after leaving the automated menu. Athonvarangkul asked general questions, such as whether there was an annual fee for the program, whether signature- and PIN-debit transactions were eligible for reward points, and how many points were needed to get rewards, the report says. In one case, a customer-service agent was unable to explain the differences in the features of two debit rewards even though one charged an annual fee and the other did not. "These customer-service experiences are not unique to debit cards or reward programs. However, they certainly contribute to a customer's decision in choosing to do business with a financial institution, a customer's satisfaction level and, ultimately, their level of loyalty towards banks," Athonvarangkul writes.
