SA banks score high on customer service

This is the finding of a survey conducted for Business Day by ACNielsen's Customised Research division, using its Multibus subscription research service. An area stratified probability sample of 2 496 households was used, spanning all races and income groups and representing 15,9-million, or 91%, of all urban adult South Africans.

Nedbank is the best for counter service, according to the 85 South Africans in the sample who visited the bank, 94% of whom claimed they were "satisfied". Only 6% were "slightly unsatisfied", while not one was "very unsatisfied". This high satisfaction rate applies across the spectrum of the bank's clients.

Satisfaction was measured on a three-point scale, ranging from "satisfied", through "slightly unsatisfied", to "very unsatisfied", for the question on counter service, as for all other questions in the survey.

The remaining three of the 'big four' retail banks had counter service satisfaction results clustered in the mid-eighties:
· Nedbank 94%
· ABSA 88%
· First National 83%
· Standard 82%

Nikki Quinn, client service director of ACNielsen Customised Research points out: " The margin of error which is present in all marketing research, creates the possibility of overlaps between some of these figures."

Looking at individual bank results, nearly nine out of ten ABSA clients were satisfied with the counter service of South Africa's largest bank. Ten percent were slightly unsatisfied, and 6% were very unsatisfied. As with results for other banks, these add up to more than 100% because some customers did multiple transactions and some were recorded as being both satisfied and unsatisfied with different transactions. At ABSA, black clients and female clients recorded slightly lower satisfaction levels than average.

At Standard Bank, 82% of customers claimed they were satisfied, while 13% were slightly unsatisfied, and 7% very unsatisfied. Customers who registered their dissatisfaction with the bank's counter service came from across the income spectrum - five percent of Standard's upper income customers (earning more than R8 000) were very unsatisfied, as were 9% of customers with household incomes less than R799. On the other hand, Indian and coloured customers registered satisfaction levels of close to 90%.

FNB counter service achieved scores in the 80s for all age groups, except the younger set, where the proportion dipped to 76% in the 16-24 year-olds category. Regionally, there was some variation between the provinces, with 78% of Gauteng and 81% of KwaZulu-Natal customers satisfied.

As one of the smaller banks at the time of the survey, Saambou was represented by only 26 respondents, so that although their level of counter service satisfaction is the same as for FNB (83%), statistical considerations mean that the reading on Saambou is less reliable than that of FNB.

The survey netted 57 NBS counter service users, of whom 91% were satisfied.

While the Post Office is not a fully-fledged bank in its own right, it nevertheless scored 87% for client satisfaction with savings account transactions, based on replies from 36 respondents. Just fewer than 20% of customers were slightly unsatisfied, while 6% were very unsatisfied.

Rather like the Post Office, Permanent Bank managed a satisfaction score of 87%, with 9% slightly unhappy with its counter service, and 7% very unsatisfied, based on 50 respondents uncovered by the survey.

Quinn says that because back office transactions (defined in the questionnaire as 'loans, foreign exchange transactions, account changes and general business discussions') are relatively infrequent, "the number of answers allows us only to say that the level of satisfaction was not significantly different from counter transactions."

Finally, ACNielsen asked people who used financial institutions about the length of time they were kept queuing for service.

Almost 6 out of 10 customers visiting financial institutions felt they queued "for a short time/quicker than you expected". Only 11% said they queued "for a long time/longer than you expected". Of the Big Four, it is Nedbank that keeps its queueing shortest - 70% of clients agreeing, six percentage points better than the next best bank. Again responses can add up to more than 100%, as some clients needed to stand in two different queues, for counter service and back office service.

When smaller banks are included, Permanent Bank tops the list with 79% 'short queues' experience. The Post Office savings bank brings up the rear, with only 43% of customers recording 'short queues' satisfaction.

"South African banks so often seem to be the subject of bad-service anecdotes, yet when specifically questioned about their experiences in banks, most people were satisfied with the levels of service received," says Quinn. "In ACNielsen's experience, 90% satisfaction with any service is very good indeed. Many other industries would envy the levels of customer satisfaction attained by South African banks."