JOHANNESBURG - African Bank customers were the most satisfied of the country’s six biggest banks in 2019, the South African Customer Satisfaction Index (SA-csi) for Banking reported yesterday.
African Bank toppled Capitec which had been leading the index for six years at a high score of 85 points, a seven-point improvement from the 2018 SA-csi.
Capitec scored 84 points, followed by Nedbank with 80.2 points and FNB 79 points, who were all above the industry average of 78.2 points. Absa and Standard Bank were below par, scoring 76.8 and 75.3 points respectively.
The survey found that customers were placing far more emphasis on perceived value and the need for banks to retain a human touch. “To compete successfully banks will need to continue innovating in the digital space, but also introduce equally innovative service delivery models within their more traditional channels such as branches, ATMs and contact centres,” the study said. It surveyed nearly 15000 customers from lower, middle and upper retail-banking segments on their overall level of satisfaction with Absa, African Bank, Capitec, FNB, Nedbank, and Standard Bank.
African Bank chief executive, Basani Maluleke, said the group had worked hard over the past 12 months to improve all aspects of its customer engagement.
“Being placed first is testimony to the commitment of our people to customer service and the growing trust and confidence shown in the bank by South African consumers,” said Maluleke, adding that this was only the third year the bank had participated in the survey.
“To have leapt from fourth place in 2018 to first place in 2019 is a source of great pride,” she said.
Last year the bank moved to set a realistic target for its customer base due to the lacklustre economic environment, and revised it down to 1.7 million customers in 2021 compared with its previous goal of reaching 2.5 million.
The report said when customer expectations were overlaid with perceived quality scores, African Bank, Absa, Capitec, FNB and Nedbank all exceeded their customer expectations, while Standard Bank had a negative gap where perceived quality did not meet expectations.
It found that Standard Bank continued to struggle with its value proposition to clients, and had remained below par on overall customer satisfaction since the inception of the index eight years ago.
“Its score declined by almost two index points in 2019 after showing some improvement in 2018,” said the report.
Absa, which is rebuilding its brand of trust and confidence, remained stable, while Nedbank made consistent improvements.