British comparison site MoneySavingExpert.com has conducted a customer satisfaction survey of Britain’s high street banks with First Direct leading the pack and Barclays finishing last.
First Direct has topped the table each time the bi-annual independent questionnaire has run for the last six years.
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Barclays, which has worked to develop its mobile payments services, plummeted to the bottom of the table from sixth position in the last poll in February. Over a quarter of Barclay’s respondents voted the service as poor (26%).
A Barclays spokesperson said the bank was working hard to improve services: "Even one dissatisfied customer is one too many. Whilst this survey doesn’t tally with our comprehensive and independent customer satisfaction scores, we will learn any lessons we need to in order to do better in future."
First Direct, HSBC’S internet and telephone banking brand, gained 92% of ‘great’ service votes, with 6% voting ‘OK’ and 2% ‘poor’. These are the exact same results it achieved in February.
Santander and TSB have climbed the ranks. Santander’s 123 account has drawn customers due to its interest offering of 1% on £1,000 ($1,659), 2% on £2,000 and 3% on £3,000 and up to 3% cashback on household bills.
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By GlobalDataSteve Pateman, head of Santander’s UK banking, said: "We continue to focus relentlessly on improving the levels of service to ensure we deliver."
Santander spent the first four years of the survey at the bottom and the Spanish-owned bank has recently focused on improving its customer service.
Guy Anker, managing editor of MoneySavingExpert.com, said: "It’s astonishing that over half of the account holders at four major banks voted the service they get is just OK or poor. This should be seen as a stark warning that the big banks risk losing customers if they don’t raise their game."
RBS, HSBC, NatWest and Barclays rank as the bottom four of the table. The top four are First Direct, Santander (up two from February) Smile (Co-op group) and Nationwide. In total, 7,875 votes were cast. Banks with under 100 votes were not included and there were 14 banks surveyed altogether.
The account switching stats for the UK collected by TNS since the introduction of the seven day switching guarantee do not reflect the feelings of customers in the survey.
In August, while First Direct regularly topped customer satisfaction surveys, TNS found that the HSBC direct bank gained just 3% of switchers, while losing 1%, between 18 June and 18 July.
Santander was, as it has been for some months, the switching winner with 29% of joiners and just 9% of leavers. This is mostly down to the continuing popularity of its 123 account.
Barclays, dead last in the satisfaction poll, was even in August with 11% of switchers both coming and going.
