Despite the recession biting the economy, customers are still happy on the whole with the financial services they receive, according to a major UK survey.
The financial sector remains in the top half of the 12 private and public sectors in the latest national measure of customer satisfaction by the Institute of Customer Service (ICS).
The UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UKCSI) online poll of 12,000 people asked how well companies and organisations performed in key areas such as complaint handling, professionalism, quality and competence and friendliness of staff.
Finance (insurers) was up by one index point on last year, standing its ground as a high ranking sector at 75 out of 100. Finance (banks) came just a few steps behind on 73, although making no improvement on last year.
Many individual organisations have topped whole sector ratings and several of these are within the financial sector.
The top insurers were Zurich, Tesco and AXA all on 78. Coming in third was Churchill on 77 and last year’s top performer, the AA also on 77.
Bottom of the insurers is Budget on 66 which is new to the survey. Second to last is Admiral on 68 who have dropped a disappointing 10 points since the previous survey leaving them just below Hastings on 70.
The top banks were first direct which has maintained its stronghold in first place on 85, next RBS 80, Alliance & Leicester 78 and HSBC on 75.
The most commendable turnaround for the banks was Barclays who last time scored 63 but has now skipped up the ranks four places to 73 leaving NatWest on 71, Halifax on 70 and non-mover Abbey on 68.
ICS executive director Robert Crawford says he is pleased how insurers and banks have been able to maintain the positions they hold in the index.
“Troubles with the recession have surely put pressure on financial institutions to look after their customers better than ever. It's comforting to know that standards have not slipped but it's vital that companies realise it's more important than ever now to maintain loyalty and handle complaints efficiently.
“The financial sector has managed to keep up their service levels but there is still room for improvement.”
The all sector average has increased by two points to 71 with seven of the top sectors meeting this mark including both finance sectors. In the ‘league table’ of sectors services once again came top increasing to 79 from 76 last time, second came retail (non-food) on 77 and third was automotive on 76.
ENDS 01 July 2008
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Notes to editors:
ICS is the professional body for customer service whose primary purpose is to lead and raise customer service performance and professionalism.
The ICS completed a major piece of research into what matters most to customers. There are 20 individual factors that can be grouped into five attributes: professionalism, problem solving, timeliness, quality/ efficiency and being easy to do business with.
The full research, including how these service priorities relate to each other and the extent they vary by sector and geography, are detailed in the report customer priorities: what customers really want which is available to editors free of charge from ICS by emailing caroline@gravitaspr.co.uk
This research forms the basis of the UKCSI questionnaire which is a self-completion, web-based survey repeated every six months. Results are determined on a geographically and demographically representative sample of UK adults and data is collected for all organisations with a high market share in each segment of the private sector and the main players in the public sector. This latest UKCSI is based on a sample of 12,000 adults surveyed during May and June 2008.
The UKCSI is produced from the scores received back from the survey asking customers to rate, on a scale of 1-10, their experience of customer service. The questionnaire is based on the 20 factors determining the quality of customer service, and measured across 12 business sectors.
Each of these factors is weighted according to how important customers said they were in the ICS research Customer priorities: what customers really want and the weighted satisfaction scores are used to produce the Index. The weightings can vary from sector to sector – some factors are more important in some sectors than in others - and these are taken into account in the calculation of the UKCSI. This makes the scores exceptionally robust as they are not simply a percentage of respondents who answered a question in the positive or negative – they are derived from a weighted index of multiple questions.
The UKCSI has been welcomed by BSI British Standards. It says: “We believe it is an important step in improving customer satisfaction in the UK as well as a useful tool for consumers and business. Customer satisfaction is a key area of standardisation for BSI and our own work in this area potentially assists organisations to improve their position in the index.”
More information is available at ukcsi.com which details the full methodology of the UKCSI and gives additional information on the results within each of the 12 sectors.