The battle of the banks hits a high in digital Covid economyBanks responded rapidly and empathetically to their account holders' financial crisis when the country went into hard lockdown around this time last year. According to a Banking Association of South Africa (Basa) report banks had provided over R50bn in financial relief - R33,61bn in payment breaks on credit agreements and R16,71bn under the loan guarantee scheme - to South African businesses and individuals. SA's banks earned a significant amount of goodwill and loyalty with their rapid and wide-scale debt-relief responses at the time. 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. Even prior to Covid-19, the technology and innovation drive of banks had already served to increase customer expectations of online capability combined with more personalised offerings and services. The arrival of the pandemic and hard lockdown redirected banks and their customers to an increased reliance on digital tools, processes, and self-service channels as a replacement for in-branch and call centre interactions. The digital acceleration brought about by the adaptation to a new multi-channel, connected normal, combined with consumer financial distress, have further increased customer expectations off an already high base, while reducing their tolerance for a bad customer experience. These are just some of the findings of the 2020 South African Customer Satisfaction Index (SA-csi) for Banking conducted by Consulta, providing highly scientific insights into the overall level of satisfaction of customers of South Africa's top retail banks. 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 – Absa, African Bank, Capitec, FNB, Nedbank, and Standard Bank. Key take outs
Absa (78.6) and Standard Bank (77,7), although showing improvement on previous 2019 scores, come in below industry par. FNB has the highest complaint incidence (23.0%) and the lowest complaint resolution rate (49.8). |