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While Customer satisfaction with community banks and credit unions has fallen, it remains higher than satisfaction with national and super regional banks, according to a recent report from the American Customer Satisfaction Index.

The ACSI’s Finance, Insurance, and Health Care Report 2019-2020 showed that customer satisfaction with banks overall fell 2.5 percent compared to the previous reporting period.

The most recent report was based on interviews with 44,442 randomly chosen customers who were contacted by email between Oct. 9, 2019, and Sept. 25, 2020.

The ACSI said in a statement that no industry covered by the report escaped a downturn, and nearly 90 percent of individual firms measured in the finance and insurance sector posted losses in satisfaction.

“Overlapping roughly half of the interview period, COVID-19 upended business as usual for these sectors. However, the virus is not entirely responsible for the wave of dissatisfaction,” David VanAmburg, managing director at the ACSI, said in a statement. “Instead, it amplified trends already present. For industries like banks, credit unions, and hospitals, the negative trend goes back further.”

Customer satisfaction with banks overall fell year-over-year 2.5 percent to an ACSI score of 78 on a 100-point scale. But for the second straight year, banks finished ahead of credit unions, which were down 2.5 percent to a score of 77.

Regional and community institutions slid 2.4 percent to 81. National banks, which the ACSI said had made gains last year, fell back 2.6 percent to 76. Super regional banks, a group of 10 banks including TD Bank, Citizens Bank, KeyBank and PNC bank, had the lowest score among banks, falling 3.8 percent to a score of 75.

Among the four national banks, Citibank dropped 5 percent in satisfaction and was tied with Chase, which fell 3 percent, with both banks scoring 77. Bank of America slipped 3 percent to 75, tying with Wells Fargo, which was down 1 percent in satisfaction.

Capital One led the 10 super regional banks with a score of 77, down 3 percent in customer satisfaction. PNC Bank and TD Bank had scores of 76, and Citizens Bank was down 4 percent with a score of 75. KeyBank came in with a score of 72.

According to the ACSI’s report, the customer experience worsened for the bank industry overall across nearly every benchmark, including call center satisfaction, quality of mobile app and website satisfaction. The staff courtesy and helpfulness benchmark remained top-rated for banks, down 2 percent to 85, but it declined for the second straight year.

The ACSI noted in its report that branches continued to be an important part of bank operations. Among ACSI survey respondents, about 60 percent reported visiting a branch within the last six months, while about 70 percent had used mobile banking within the past three months. During the period overlapping the COVID-19 pandemic from April to September 2020, bank visits decreased only slightly, with a small uptick in mobile usage.

“At least for now, both mobile banking and in-branch visits remain important components of the banking experience for customers,” the ACSI said.

Smaller regional and community banks continued to rank higher in satisfaction in most areas, according to the report. While small banks lagged in scores for ATMs (70) and branches (64), they performed better in personalized service. Small banks outpaced national and super regional banks for staff courtesy (87), in-branch transaction speed (86) and call center satisfaction (82).

According to ACSI data, member satisfaction with credit unions significantly weakened during the COVID-19 pandemic, a phenomenon the ACSI said did not affect banks. For the six-month interview period from April to September 2020, satisfaction with credit unions was significantly lower (75) compared to the previous six months (77).

“Perhaps more so than bank customers, credit union members may be missing the personal touch that their institutions could more easily achieve prior to the constraints of the pandemic,” the ACSI said in its report.