(24 October 2008 – Australia) East & Partners’ latest Business Banking Customer Satisfaction Monitor (BBCSM) shows Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s (CBA) overall customer satisfaction improving since last month.Arguably of greater significance is the fact that CBA’s rating has trended upwards over the past few months reversing a downward trend for the fist time in over a year.
While CBA’s overall customer satisfaction rating is still just 3.88 (using a scale where 0 is ‘very dissatisfied and 10 is ‘very satisfied’), there are signs that their satisfaction rating has hit an inflection point.
Of the Big Four banks, National Australia Bank was the only other bank to improve its overall customer satisfaction rating from last month.
East’s BBCSM is based on interviews with 850 business customers every month (10,200 annually) turning over between A$5 and 500 million per annum.
“Although CBA’s improvement in its overall customer satisfaction is marginal over the past few months, it is an encouraging trend for CBA”, East & Partners’ head of market analysis, Robert Morgan said.
“It will be interesting to see if CBA can now continue this upward trend and move its satisfaction well beyond the current ‘below average’ level”, Mr Morgan said.
“Against the backdrop of an ever changing banking landscape and the increasingly difficult economic environment, improving customer satisfaction is extremely important in the battle against customer attrition”, Mr Morgan concluded.