News and resources for Canada's top financial advisors
Est. 1998
Filed by Mark Noble, Advisor.ca, mark.noble@advisor.rogers.com
(08/29/07)
Filed by Mark Noble, Advisor.ca, mark.noble@advisor.rogers.com
(08/29/07)
Filed by Mark Noble, Advisor.ca, mark.noble@advisor.rogers.com
(08/29/07)
 |
A recent consumer survey of customer service at Canada’s financial institutions has found credit unions are preferred over the Big Five banks.
Synovate Canada, which conducts the study every year, asked 17,500 Canadians to rate the service at their financial services institutions.
Apart from the Big Five, Synovate did not release individual results of the companies studied, which included smaller financial institutions such as trust companies and small banks.
Adrian Murphy, syndicated research services director at Synovate Canada, says that on a company by company basis, it’s unfair to compare companies because of their comparable economies of scale — small banking institutions that score high in customer service may not take top honours due to a limited client base.
Murphy, who headed up the study, did acknowledge that credit unions scored higher than the banks in customer satisfaction, especially when it comes to financial products and services, the category likely of most interest to advisors.
“When we report our findings, because a credit union is different than a bank, we do show it in a separate category from all financial institutions and from the Big Five banks,” says Murphy. “If you take all financial institutions as a whole, and you add in trust companies and credit unions and so forth, credit unions as a category come in first overall. We do make that distinction.”
Murphy says there is no guarantee that respondents have any frame of reference to assess the quality of their institution when compared to smaller independent financial providers or vice versa.
Credit unions are nonetheless touting the study as a win for the little guy. Art Chamberlain, manager of media relations for Credit Union Central, a national trade association of 479 credit unions, says a large part of the success of its members is their ability to avoid the high turnover of employees that the banks face. He says this feature is especially important for those that do business with the expanding base of financial advisors available through credit unions.
“When you’re dealing with a credit union, there tends to be a lot more consistency and a lot fewer turnovers,” Chamberlain says. “In a lot of cases, a big part of what we offer is continuity. We don’t move people around from branch to branch or province to province. Our employees — especially advisors and managers — tend to stay put. As a customer, you’re probably dealing with the same person over the course of several years.”
The Big Five aren’t sitting on their hands when it comes to customer service, though, Synovate notes. Since 2002, the overall satisfaction of bank customers has been on a steady rise, increasing by 28%.
TD Canada Trust took the top spot for Big Five service for the third year in a row, closely followed by RBC. RBC had been a previous laggard in customer service, the survey reports, but it has come on strong in the past two years, taking top honours in the “value for money of products and services received” category.
Both banks have robust retail branch networks, which has been cited as part of their success in fund sales, which are consistently among the best in Canada.
“We found that the results from the 20th anniversary customer service index, as well as prior years’ surveys, are highly correlated with the respective institutions’ organic revenue growth rates, demonstrating that meeting and exceeding customers’ expectations has a direct impact on their financial performance,” noted Rob Myers, managing director of Synovate Canada.
The service categories evaluated in the survey included
Filed by Mark Noble, Advisor.ca, mark.noble@advisor.rogers.com
(08/29/07)
|
A recent consumer survey of customer service at Canada’s financial institutions has found credit unions are preferred over the Big Five banks.
Synovate Canada, which conducts the study every year, asked 17,500 Canadians to rate the service at their financial services institutions.
Apart from the Big Five, Synovate did not release individual results of the companies studied, which included smaller financial institutions such as trust companies and small banks.
Adrian Murphy, syndicated research services director at Synovate Canada, says that on a company by company basis, it’s unfair to compare companies because of their comparable economies of scale — small banking institutions that score high in customer service may not take top honours due to a limited client base.
Murphy, who headed up the study, did acknowledge that credit unions scored higher than the banks in customer satisfaction, especially when it comes to financial products and services, the category likely of most interest to advisors.
“When we report our findings, because a credit union is different than a bank, we do show it in a separate category from all financial institutions and from the Big Five banks,” says Murphy. “If you take all financial institutions as a whole, and you add in trust companies and credit unions and so forth, credit unions as a category come in first overall. We do make that distinction.”
Murphy says there is no guarantee that respondents have any frame of reference to assess the quality of their institution when compared to smaller independent financial providers or vice versa.
Credit unions are nonetheless touting the study as a win for the little guy. Art Chamberlain, manager of media relations for Credit Union Central, a national trade association of 479 credit unions, says a large part of the success of its members is their ability to avoid the high turnover of employees that the banks face. He says this feature is especially important for those that do business with the expanding base of financial advisors available through credit unions.
“When you’re dealing with a credit union, there tends to be a lot more consistency and a lot fewer turnovers,” Chamberlain says. “In a lot of cases, a big part of what we offer is continuity. We don’t move people around from branch to branch or province to province. Our employees — especially advisors and managers — tend to stay put. As a customer, you’re probably dealing with the same person over the course of several years.”
The Big Five aren’t sitting on their hands when it comes to customer service, though, Synovate notes. Since 2002, the overall satisfaction of bank customers has been on a steady rise, increasing by 28%.
TD Canada Trust took the top spot for Big Five service for the third year in a row, closely followed by RBC. RBC had been a previous laggard in customer service, the survey reports, but it has come on strong in the past two years, taking top honours in the “value for money of products and services received” category.
Both banks have robust retail branch networks, which has been cited as part of their success in fund sales, which are consistently among the best in Canada.
“We found that the results from the 20th anniversary customer service index, as well as prior years’ surveys, are highly correlated with the respective institutions’ organic revenue growth rates, demonstrating that meeting and exceeding customers’ expectations has a direct impact on their financial performance,” noted Rob Myers, managing director of Synovate Canada.
The service categories evaluated in the survey included
Filed by Mark Noble, Advisor.ca, mark.noble@advisor.rogers.com
(08/29/07)
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