Many companies claim, as a matter of principle, that they aim to satisfy their customers. But how satisfied are customers, and more importantly, how much satisfaction is sufficient?
According to a survey of 100 banking customers that the consultancy O’Connor & Associates (Rochester, NY) conducted between mid-May and mid-June this year, only 28% of the respondents give their banks’ customer service the highest possible rating, ten, on a scale of one to ten (see figure 1).
What’s more, when O’Connor asked respondents to rank on a scale of one to ten the extent to which they would recommend their banks to others, only 38% said their endorsements of their banks would earn a ranking of ten (see figure 2).
Are these positive or negative findings for banks? Before we consider this question, let’s look at some additional findings, such as respondents’ perceptions of service by phone, and compare respondents’ perception of service by e-mail.
When O’Connor asked respondents how courteous call center agents were on a scale of one to ten, 37% of the respondents ranked agents ten for their courteousness, 69% gave agents a ranking of at least nine and 89% gave agents a minimum ranking of eight.
The results were slightly worse for respondents’ perceptions of first-call resolution. Only 23% of respondents said their banks earned a ranking of ten for their skill with resolving issues by phone. But, as with respondents’ feedback about the professionalism of call center agents, respondents’ feedback about their banks’ proficiency with first-call resolution seems far more positive once you recognize that 77% gave their banks at least a ranking of eight (see figure 3).
Now let’s look at courteousness and resolution in the context of how banks communicate with customers by e-mail. Slightly more than a quarter, or 26%, of respondents gave their banks the maximum ranking of ten for the professionalism of their on-line correspondence. As was the case with respondents’ rankings of their banks’ professionalism over the phone, the percentage was much higher – 82% – among respondents whose banks earned a minimum ranking of eight for how courteously they responded to e-mail.
When you evaluate respondents’ perception of their banks’ courteousness by phone and by e-mail, the most noticeable difference is between those who gave their banks the highest ratings. Thirty-seven percent of respondents ranked their banks ten for professionalism by phone; 26% ranked their banks ten for professionalism by e-mail. But this difference diminishes when you look at percentages of respondents who gave banks at least a ranking of eight for professionalism; those percentages were, respectively, 89% for service by phone and 82% for e-mail.
We observe this tendency to a greater extent we look closely at respondents’ feedback about resolution. You’ll recall that 23% of respondents gave banks the highest possible ranking for first-call resolution. The percentage of respondents who ranked their banks ten for their ability to resolve, in one e-mail message, requests they conveyed on-line was 24% (see figure 4).
In other words, the percentage of respondents who indicated their banks earned top marks for resolving requests was nearly the same whether the resolution occurred by phone or by e-mail. When you compare percentages between respondents who gave their banks at least a ranking of eight for resolution, there is a similarly small difference – 71% by e-mail by versus 77% by phone.
Now we are ready to return to our earlier question: Are the survey’s findings positive or negative for banks?
Let’s keep in mind that we’re dealing with a small sample of customers. Let’s also keep in mind what O’Connor & Associates does: this consultancy surveys customers from a variety of banks, as well as customers of other types of companies, to gauge their views about the service they receive. The aim of the surveys is to find out to what extent companies’ internal perceptions of the service they offer correlate with customers’ perceptions.
When O’Connor’s surveys ask customers about banks, the questions usually involve the status of transactions, such as whether checks cleared. And in this particular survey, the respondents have maintained accounts with the banks they’re evaluating for several years, so it’s possible to characterize them as loyal customers.
Anthony Viggiano, executive vice president of O’Connor & Associates, suspects that customers find it more costly, in terms of time and effort, to switch banks than to stay with them.
“They’re willing to sacrifice a little less customer service to avoid all the problems of changing a bank,” he says. Sometimes, the process of going to banks in person to close old accounts and open new accounts – not to mention ordering new debit cards and new checks – is not worth the inconvenience.
But there may be yet another explanation for the survey’s findings. Transactions are not relationships. Customers need to place their money somewhere. They care more about the absence of fees and the accumulation of interest than they do about how well representatives of their banks communicate with them.
That doesn’t mean that customers don’t recognize professionalism when they experience it. But perfect service isn’t necessarily what customers expect from their banks. And when a survey prompts customers to rank the service their banks provide, customers aren’t likely to give banks the highest possible ranking anyway because, from their point of view, there is always room for improvement. As long as the service is good enough, that is, worthy of a ranking that’s at least eight out of ten, customers have no immediate need to move their money elsewhere.
As the rankings suggest, banks do have room for improvement. It may be unrealistic for customers to expect perfection, or even excellence, every time they communicate with banks. However, if customers make banks aware of what they need to do to improve specific aspects of service, like first-call resolution, then banks can raise expectations of service rather than requiring customers to lower them.
