Bucks Blog: Bigger Banks vs. Smaller, in Customer Satisfaction

Many consumers love to hate big banks. But the largest banks have become better at making their customers happy, according to the latest study from J.D. Power and Associates.

Customer satisfaction with banks over all has risen from last year, mostly due to improvements at the biggest institutions, the company’s latest Retail Banking Satisfaction Study finds.

Over all, banking customer satisfaction rose to 763 points (on a 1,000-point scale), an increase of 10 index points over last year. The largest increase came from the “big banks” segment, which rose by 16 points. (The segment includes the six largest banks by deposits: Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank, U.S. Bank and PNC Bank.) The study solicited customers’ opinions about their primary bank in January. The report includes more than 120 banks.

The study assesses customer satisfaction in areas like account information, fees and problem resolution, and ranks banks in 11 regional markets: California, Florida, mid-Atlantic, Midwest, New England, North Central, Northwest, South Central, Southeast, Southwest and Texas.

The biggest banks are often outranked in various markets by smaller institutions. In New England, for instance, the top-ranked bank was Bangor Savings Bank, while national banks like Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase ranked below the region’s average. And in Texas, Frost National Bank led the rankings.

But smaller banks didn’t always win out. In the Midwest region, JPMorgan Chase topped the rankings, outscoring 22 other banks.

Big banks are still outranked by midsize banks overall (as a group, the midsize segment ranked 785 on the scale), but are closing the gap after a period in which new fees and the elimination of free checking accounts turned off customers. Now, fees have begun to “stabilize” and big banks are doing a better job of explaining their fee structures to customers, the report says. About a third of customers now say they “completely” understand their banks fees, up from about a quarter last year, the study reports.

Jim Miller, senior director of banking at J.D. Power, said in an interview that the big banks were doing a better job of reducing the number of problems that customers encountered and “executing on basic customer service.” The largest banks, like Chase, are also expanding their use of mobile banking technology. That makes it more convenient for customers to bank, which adds to their satisfaction.

Do you use a big bank? Are you satisfied with your treatment?

Article source: http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/25/bigger-banks-vs-smaller-in-customer-satisfaction/?partner=rss&emc=rss