An independent banking consultant says the latest Roy Morgan banking customer satisfaction survey is an exercise in 'spin'.Sarah Lochead-MacMillan from the $LM Group said the reported “positive shift” of 0.9% year-on-year in customer satisfact
An independent banking consultant says the latest Roy Morgan banking customer satisfaction survey is an exercise in 'spin'.
Sarah Lochead-MacMillan from the $LM Group said the reported “positive shift” of 0.9% year-on-year in customer satisfaction for the five major banks is so miniscule “it seems they were looking for an excuse to call it an increase”. She added that banks pay for such surveys to be conducted.
The survey reported “positive shifts in the overall satisfaction levels for most banks”, with TSB retaining its position having the highest satisfaction levels despite recent declines.
Overall bank customer satisfaction increased to 77.6%. The survey included consumers from 14 years old upwards.
Mrs Lochead-MacMillan said while the survey is not misleading in terms of releasing true figures it obtained, it is unclear what is behind these figures. It does not specify the exact number of customer responses and therefore can be misread by the general public.
“Out of the millions of people that bank with all these banks, what was the percentage of people that retuned responses?
“There are customers that have gone under and are no longer banking so potentially the pool of customers they could have asked is less so therefore their scores would have gone up.
“If [for example] you ask 100 people, 0.9% of 100 people is not even a whole person.”
Roy Morgan head of New Zealand operations Mark Dansey said the satisfaction survey was a sub section of a wider annual banking survey, which was based on a sample of 12,000 people.
He was unable to specify the exact number of people who answered questions specifically related to the banking satisfaction sub section “because in the report they just say it’s part of the larger survey”.
Question wording:
Overall how satisfied or dissatisfied are you with your relationship with your main financial institution?
How satisfied of dissatisfied are you with these institutions? (Institutions dealt with excluding MFI).
Main Financial Institution (MFI) – the institution a respondent has nominated as their main financial institution.
Very satisfied
Fairly satisfied
Neither satisfied or dissatisfied
Fairly dissatisfied
Very dissatisfied
