POLICE are warning motorists to expect long delays in East Lothian as two major events get underway this week. Thousands of people are expected to flock to Muirfield to see Nick Faldo and other big names in the Senior Open Golf Championship, which begins tomorrow. More crowds are expected on Saturday, as more than 13,500 people travel to the Museum of Flight’s annual air show at East Fortune, near North Berwick. Police and motoring organisations are advising people to allow extra...
Banks rank low in global survey
July 25th, 2007
AUSTRALIAN banks have been ranked among the worst in the world by a global study that accuses them of shoddy service in branches and call centres.
The Booz Allen Hamilton report also identified serious problems in the online banking offerings here.
While broadly performing in line with the global average for online banking, Australian banks lagged behind global peers in security, providing customers with clear and logical information and segmentation of internet services.
The study found that Australian banks came in 13th in retail banking service, near the bottom of the table of 17 countries.
The Booz Allen Hamilton study may be a disturbing reminder that Australian service providers are lagging behind their international peers.
Last week, another study found that Australia’s two biggest supermarkets, Coles and Woolworths, which control about 75 per cent of the $80 billion grocery market, compared poorly with Europe’s leading retailers.
Still, the Booz Allen Hamilton survey also found there was no shortage of overseas banks that were ordinary.
Despite efficiency programs, most had failed to reduce their cost-to-income ratios. It said their call centres and online offerings were failing to meet customer expectations.
David Bell, chief executive of the Australian Bankers’ Association, said the study’s findings contrasted sharply with customer satisfaction surveys of Australian banks carried out by Roy Morgan and ACNielsen.
“In the Roy Morgan survey, on average 70 per cent of customers are very satisfied or fairly satisfied with their bank,” Mr Bell said.
“It is also important to note that, unlike other countries, Australia has a long history of stable and safe banks. Not a single dollar of taxpayers’ money has been demanded or required to reimburse bank depositors in more than 100 years.”
The Booz Allen Hamilton survey ranked 100 major retail banks, measuring their performance in four key areas of customer service: branches, call centres, online banking and deployment of mobile bankers.
All up, Australian banks pulled in at around the global average. However, there was a huge gap between that and what was termed as global best practice.
Worse still, Australian banks performed particularly badly in sales and services through branches and call centres. In both areas, they came in at 14th.
When it came to online banking, they were ranked in 13th spot.
If Australian banks had any good points, it was in mobile banking. Australia and Hong Kong are among the only places in the world that offer this service and Australia was ranked in second position behind Hong Kong.
Booz Allen Hamilton conducted the extensive research by interviewing 2000 banking customers. It also dispatched shopping teams to go into branches, surf on the internet, and deal with call centres and mobile sales teams.
They found that Australian call centres performed poorly in terms of accessibility, product knowledge and segmentation of the offering.
Australian bank customers said they were frustrated with long connection times and being flick-passed from adviser to adviser. They also said they wanted to speak to a human being.
When it came to branches, Australians valued staff knowledge about products, ability to resolve queries and handle privacy issues, and provide up-to-date information.
Australian consumers were, however, frustrated with the need to constantly fill out forms and provide information about themselves.
The best branches in the world, according to the study, had hotel foyer-style appearances, the best call centres had short waiting times and instant connections to real people, rather than recordings, and the best websites had unbeatable security, complete with security certificates, pin cards and even random number generators.
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