SA banks' satisfaction score declines

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The SAcsi surveyed 7,796 randomly selected customers of Absa, Capitec, FNB, Standard Bank and Nedbank. Capitec set this year's overall banking benchmark at 81.5 out of 100. Its customer satisfaction score increased by a statistically significant 3.2% on the 2012 rating and was 7.8% above the industry average.

Following closely behind Capitec, FNB (79.5) shares the industry leader position with a satisfaction score which is 5.1% above industry average. All the other banks' satisfaction scores were below industry par, although the scores showed some movement compared to 2012. In the case of FNB, which marginally enjoyed the top spot over Capitec in 2012, its satisfaction score remained unchanged, whilst Nedbank showed a decline of 5.5%. Standard Bank's score is down by 3.6% and Absa's by 4.3%.

Revolutionary changes

"SA's banking industry has gone through revolutionary changes over the past couple of years," says Prof. Adré Schreuder, founder and chair of the SAcsi. "With Capitec bringing competitively priced banking products to the market and FNB driving new innovations in the way in which consumers do banking, it is more challenging for the banks to keep up with consumers' increased demands on service quality and value for money."

Prof. Schreuder says that consumers' expectations have increased slightly from last year to this year and that consumers are more willing to switch banks if they are not satisfied with the products and services offered by their bank. "This behaviour makes customer retention a challenge, one that no South African bank should take lightly given that retention scores have dropped slightly from last year to this year."

Index expanded

The SAcsi is an independent national benchmark of customer satisfaction of the quality of products and services available to household consumers. Companies are selected for inclusion based on market share and the random sample includes a desired minimum of 270 respondents per company, though the banking survey encompassed a much larger sample. Each month, customer satisfaction results are released for a different collection of specific industries.

This year, the banking satisfaction index was expanded to include additional, focused measurements of banking channels, banking products and private banking. These do not form part of the calculation of the overall customer satisfaction score for the industry but indicate satisfaction with the various aspects of banking.