DURBAN - CAPITEC is once again the leader of the 2020 South African Customer Satisfaction Index (SA-csi) for Banking amid a tumultuous year for the banking sector amid Covid-19 disruption.
The index by Consulta, polled almost 12 500 customers from the lower, middle, and upper retail banking segments on their overall satisfaction with South Africa's big six retail banks during 2020, which are Absa, African Bank, Capitec, FNB, Nedbank, and Standard Bank.
Consulta head of Customer Insights Ineke Prinsloo said yesterday that with every aspect of customer service and engagement having been radically changed by technology, digitisation, and remote working models, banks and their customers had adapted to new technology platforms and unprecedented circumstances.
“On one side, banks were heavily challenged in ensuring that their commercial interests, business operations and customer service channels continued unencumbered, despite not having made budget provisions for the massive increased costs of doing business in a black swan pandemic environment. On the other side, consumers faced devastating challenges that regressed consumers right back to simply trying to secure their most basic physiological and safety needs under significant financial and emotional duress,” said Prinsloo.
Prinsloo said the local banks earned a significant amount of goodwill and loyalty with their rapid and wide-scale debt-relief responses in the past year.
“However, they will need to work hard to leverage this position as a protracted pandemic tests every facet of customer resilience and loyalty in a tough and uncertain economy,” she said.
The SA-csi for Banking 2020 showed that in the overall Customer Satisfaction Score, Capitec was once again the leader at 84.7 followed by African Bank with 83.4, Nedbank at 81.1 and FNB at 80.2 with all in the leader positions above the industry average of 79.6. Absa at 78.6 and Standard Bank at 77.7 were said to be showing improvement on previous 2019 scores despite coming in below the industry par.
The index also showed that Customer Expectations and Perceived Quality within the banking industry continued to rise to new highs of 83.1 compared to 82.4 in 2019.
On Perceived Value the index showed that Capitec leads at 87.7 by more than 13 index points over the lowest scores in this category, which are Absa with 73.6 and Standard Bank at 74.5, both of which were below industry par of 76. Capitec is followed by African Bank at 84.2 and Nedbank on 78.1 and FNB also in leader positions at 76.
On Complaints Incidence and Resolution, Capitec had the lowest Complaint Incidence at 11.9 percent and a high Complaint Resolution rate of 55.4 in line with global benchmarks. African Bank had the second-lowest Complaint Incidence rate with 14 percent and the highest Complaint Resolution date of 59.7 also well within global benchmarks. FNB had the highest complaint incidence at 23 percent and the lowest complaint resolution rate at 49.8 followed by Standard Bank, with complaint incidence at 22.5 percent and a resolution rate of 51.9. Both banks were below industry par, and on average, only half of the customer complaints were satisfactorily resolved.
The customer complaints mostly revolved around account queries, debit orders and payments, card issues, fees, and costs. Banks were said to continue to be poor at preventing repeat causes of complaints and customer dissatisfaction once resolved, which directly correlated with customer loyalty.
Customer Loyalty was led by Capitec with 76.7 percent, African Bank at 76.2 percent, Nedbank at 73.5 percent and FNB at 72.8 percent which have the most loyal customers and were above industry par of 71.6 percent although both African Bank and FNB were said to have declined on their 2019 scores. Absa at 70.4 percent and Standard Bank at 69.3 percent had the least loyal customers and were below par despite both showing marked improvements over the last five years.
On Treating Customers Fairly, the degree to which customers felt they were being treated fairly by their banks was African Bank at 86.3, Capitec at 86.3 and Nedbank at 82.9 and above industry par 81.1. FNB was on par while Absa and Standard Bank performed lowest and had consistently performed below industry par over a five-year period.
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