Background: A local financial institution recently partnered with Research & Marketing Strategies (RMS) to assess its retail and business customer satisfaction, loyalty, and needs. Additionally, the bank wanted to use the market research to measure changes from the prior study conducted with RMS in 2009, awareness level of products and services at the bank, product wants and concerns, and other key items requested by the client. RMS consulted with the bank on the findings, assisted in developing action items from the recommendations, and formulated next steps.
In a growing world of mobile and electronic banking, personal relationships still matter.
Approach: To address the specific needs of the market research, RMS worked with the designated banking team to design a 5 to 7 minute paper survey with an option to complete the questionnaire online using a unique passcode. A random sample of 4.000 bank customers were mailed the survey. The sample of 4,000 bank customers was taken at random from the bank’s database. Sample was proportionate to the number of customers the bank serves. In order to obtain a reliable number of completes from business customers, RMS over-sampled that population slightly. Surveys were mailed in early 2013 and the fieldwork was left open for approximately 8 weeks.
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Results: Here is a brief summary of some key statistics:
- Overall satisfaction with the bank remained extremely high. In total, 88% of survey respondents indicated a high level of satisfaction with the bank (8 to 10 on a 1 to 10 scale). Customers are also very likely to recommend the bank (78% rated their likelihood to recommend as an 8 to 10 on a 1 to 10 scale).
- Over half (60%) of the bank’s customers who use a competitive institution rated the bank as “better” than others. In addition to that, the bank’s Net Promoter Score (NPS®) was higher than comparable financial institutions nationwide. However, overall satisfaction with the bank did drop by 6% points since 2009, which detailed an overall satisfaction rating of 94%.
- Personal experiences still played a large role in the foundation of impressions that were formed by respondents about the bank. Approximately 86% of all customers used or visited the branch lobby as part of their customer experience with the bank while another 55% use the drive-up.
- Respondents mentioned four main factors as drivers for choosing a primary financial institution (PFI): (1) location; (2) customer service; (3) staff; and (4) convenience.
Are you a bank or credit union that is interested in conducting customer satisfaction surveys or member satisfaction surveys? Contact our Business Development Director, Sandy Baker at SandyB@RMSresults.com or by calling 315-635-9802.
[…] How do you track me? All banks and credit unions know what PFI is, but very little actually know what percentage of their customers use them as their PFI. So is the fact that you have 175,000 checking accounts good or bad? Are 90% of those checking accounts non-primary accounts for users? If so, how does that change your deposit account marketing and strategies? This PFI metric will answer those questions for you. A strategy that many financial institutions employ is bringing in new customers through rate promotions and cross-selling them on other products and services in hopes to convert them to a PFI user down the road. Here is a case study for an image and awareness study. […]