(23 September 2009 – Australia) St George bank continues to lead the way in business banking satisfaction, with growing satisfaction despite the market average continuing to fall, according to the latest East & Partners’ Business Banking Sentiment Index (BBSI).According to the BBSI, St George is the leading bank in customer satisfaction with businesses turning over between $1 million and $100 million annually.
In fact, the bank has been top in satisfaction since the index started in June 2006, and leads the way by more than seven points (using a scale from a low of 10 to a high of 100) in the latest August 2009 index, with a score of 75.5.
“While there was uncertainty from St George customers during the merger with Westpac, the St George customer service model continues to deliver satisfied business banking customers”, East & Partners’ financial markets analyst, Peter Drennan said.
“St George’s increasing satisfaction in recent months is particularly significant given that the majority of banks continue to see heavy falls in satisfaction”, Mr Drennan added.
The only other banks that have seen an increase in satisfaction in the latest report are regional banks Bank of Queensland and Suncorp.
In the BBSI, satisfaction is one of the four key metrics that make up customer sentiment. The overall Sentiment Score 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, $5 to 20 million and $20 to 100 million turnover segments across Australia.