Customer satisfaction with retail banks in the UK has risen by
1% to 72%, and the aggregate of smaller banks and building
societies has outperformed the industry average with 75%, according
to the latest National Customer Satisfaction Index (NCSI-UK), in
partnership with American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) and
CFI.
James Rudd, managing director of CFI Group UK,
said, “Smaller institutions and new entrants haven’t been able to
compete with the big banks in the past, but the current climate may
be creating a perfect storm.”
Go deeper with GlobalData
HSBC – including its first direct subsidiary –
has the highest customer satisfaction score of the major high
street banks. This is the fourth consecutive year that HSBC ranked
on top, however the customer satisfaction levels have lessened from
78% in 2010 to 74% in 2011.
According to customers, the reliability of
HSBC services declined somewhat this year, and the introduction of
a mandatory Secure Key card that HSBC customers must carry in order
to access online banking has sparked criticism for requiring more
effort.
There has been significant migration of
customers from large banks to smaller institutions and credit
unions in the US already, and calls for increased competition have
grown louder, with a push to make switching easier said Rudd.
“With recent moves from Virgin Money, the
Co-operative and Metro Bank, big banks are facing new rivals whose
foundations are built upon customer relationships,” Rudd added.
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalDataNCSI-UK applies the technology and methodology
of CFI and ACSI, and indexes are reported on a 0 to 100 scale. The
results are based on survey data from more than 6,000 customers
during Q3 of 2011.
