Banks slipped a few points year-over-year, while customer satisfaction remained strong for the credit union industry, according to the most recent American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).
According to Managing Director David VanAmburg, that decline is mostly attributable to customer dissatisfaction with fees and shrinking branch networks.
“It’s this very intricate dance that banks and customers do. Banks create a fee, and customers figure out a way to be savvy enough to avoid fees,” he said. “You’re having some issues resulting from banks taking steps they need to take to try to reduce their costs.”
The ACSI measures customer satisfaction among the four largest retail banks in the United States individually (JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Bank of America) and all other banks in aggregate. That decline happened among the aggregate, which still maintained a higher score over those four giants.
The overall score for the banking industry fell to 76 this year from 78 last year. JPMorgan Chase’s ACSI score dropped to 74 from a 76 last year, while Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Bank of America maintained their 2013 scores of 74, 72 and 69, respectively. Customer satisfaction with all other banks declined to 80 from 83 last year.
But while customer satisfaction fell year-over-year, consumers’ satisfaction with banks has still improved over the long term.
When the ACSI first began measuring customer satisfaction with banks in the mid-90s, the industry’s score ranged between 68 and 74, but since the early 2000s, that score has never dipped below 75, VanAmburg said.
“There’s definitely been something that’s improved the experience decade on decade, not year by year,” he said.
Meanwhile, the credit union industry maintained a year-over-year ACSI score of 85. While credit unions scored higher than banks on almost every aspect of the customer service experience, customer satisfaction fell behind the banking industry on two specific pain points: the number and location of branches (71) and ATMs (70).
VanAmburg said that’s largely because credit unions usually offer more competitive rates on savings accounts and loans and because credit union members like being members, not customers, of the credit union.
“The value proposition is better for credit union customers and also the quality of the experience in terms of customer service,” he said, although he conceded, “There is a certain clientele that is willing to sacrifice on that one important issue.”
