Sydney, Australia – The National Australia Bank (NAB) has ranked first among five known banks in Australia regarding its implementation of customer experience to its services, the latest index from research and advisory firm Forrester shows.
NAB has improved its CX quality the most with a 6-point increase over last year, propelling the bank from third to first place in Forrester’s ranking, compared to last year. The bank has also had the highest percentage of customers reporting excellent experiences (47%) and the best performance across all three dimensions of CX quality: effectiveness, ease, and emotion.
The research also noted that among customers of Australian banks who felt valued, 62% plan to stay with the bank, 77% plan to spend more with it, and 84% will advocate for the bank. In contrast, of customers who feel frustrated, only 21% plan to stay with the bank and to spend more with it, and a mere 13% will advocate for the bank.
Riccardo Pasto, principal analyst at Forrester, noted that while banks are racing to elevate the digital experience of their websites and mobile apps, oftenly they neglect the importance of human interactions.
“At a time of strict social distancing and lockdown orders that make in-person interaction not feasible, video chat and other digitally enabled human interactions allow banks to get closer to customers and connect with them on a deeper emotional level. Our research shows that CX leaders grow revenue faster than CX laggards, drive higher brand preference, and retain more customers, who are more inclined to forgive stumbles made by brands with good CX,” Pasto said.
He also added that brands with the best customer experiences during the pandemic shutdown will benefit the most from pent-up demand on the other side.
The index also added that communicating in plain language is one of the top three drivers of CX quality; just 58% of customers say that banks are successful at this. Having transparent interest rates and fees is one of the top four drivers for retaining customers, but just over one-third of banking customers report that banks do a good job with prices and fees (36%), indicating room for improvement.
“Even a minor improvement to a brand’s customer experience quality can add revenue by reducing customer churn and increasing share of wallet. Additionally, superior CX leads to reduced service costs and lowers the cost of customer acquisition through word of mouth,” Forrester said in a press statement.
The index benchmarks the CX quality of brands and is based on a survey of more than 5,000 Australian adult customers, including more than 1,400 customers of five banks, ANZ, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, NAB, Suncorp, and Westpac.
