(4 June 2010 – Australia) Loyalty amongst Micro business customers towards their business bank continues to plummet and reach new lows, according to East & Partners’ latest Business Banking Sentiment Index (BBSI).The May 2010 edition of the BBSI shows that for the past three years, customer loyalty felt by Micro businesses (businesses with an annual turnover of $1-5 million) towards their business bank has dropped by 239 percent, falling from 45.2 (where 10 is low and 100 is high) in May 2007 to just 13.3 in May 2010.
Such a dramatic fall has severely affected overall customer sentiment felt by Micro businesses towards their bank which now stands at just 12.1.
“Such low loyalty levels are weighing heavily on the overall banks’ sentiment rating which continues to head south,” Robert Morgan, head of market analysis said.
“This would indicate that new entrants to the Australian business banking market would have a large number of customers that would be ready and willing to move from their current provider,” Mr Morgan concluded.
East & Partners’ Business Banking Sentiment Index is an aggregated rating metric comprising four different measures of customer sentiment – Empathy, Satisfaction, Loyalty and Advocacy.
Each month, East & Partners’ research team conducts telephone interviews with a sample of 750 businesses nationally, providing an in depth study of businesses in the A$1 to 5 million, A$5 to 20 million and A$20 to 100 million turnover segments across Australia.