All banks strive to provide their customers high levels of satisfaction, which can be translated into keeping their customers happy. On way to assess that satisfaction is through the Consumer Satisfaction Index carried out by Consulta.
Consulta has recently released its South African Consumer Satisfaction Index (SAcsi) for the country’s top retail banks, showing which banks have made their customers happy –and which ones not that much.
The index looks into the overall level of satisfaction of customers and key attributes including trust, fees, digital services and financial advice of South Africa’s biggest retail banks, namely Capitec, FNB, Nedbank, Absa, Standard Bank and African Bank.
Capitec leads the overall customer satisfaction score across all banks by a considerable margin for the sixth consecutive year. It is followed by FNB, also in a high position, Nedbank and African Bank. Absa and Standard Bank follow in a benchmark category that places them below industry average.
As banks try hard to offer quality services and products to keep existing customers and attract new ones, South African banking customers are pretty satisfied with the service they receive from them. But what do customers really want? What makes them feel happy?
They want the best value for their money first and then they consider the rest of attributes.
For example, the six banks offer different loan options in SA, but they all have different interest rates.
Unsurprisingly, the banks with lower interest rates are the ones that score higher at the customer satisfaction index and those with higher interest rates score lower.
The Consulta Index also indicates the recommendation ratings for each bank, because while many customers may be happy with their bank’s performance, that does not necessarily mean they will recommend that bank to friends or family.
It comes as no surprise that the recommendation rankings and satisfaction rankings are more or less the same. Again, this serves to reinforce how positively –or negatively– consumers see these banks. With regards recommendation score, Capitec and FNB outperformed their competitors: Capitec achieved the highest recommendation score of 59.8% and FNB had the next highest recommendation score of 47.9%.
The Consumer Satisfaction Index together with the recommendation ratings give us a comprehensive picture of what the best banks at keeping their customers happy are. Besides, it helps us understand what the reasons behind their score are: They are successfully giving customers what they want.
