ANZ ‘s Customer Satisfaction Rating Continues To Slide

ANZ used to enjoy high customer approval and satisfaction ratings for seven years. But with its decision to set interest rates separately from other major banks in the country, the once dominant company is now falling behind competition.

In the latest customer satisfaction rankings for the month of June, ANZ’s gap with Westpac widened. The latter placed a third in the customer satisfaction ranking scale while the rest of the banking industry remained unmoved in their rankings.

ANZ has also suffered setting negative approval and customer satisfaction at the start of the year.

The series of interest rates hikes at the beginning of the year has turned off many depositors. But a decision to hold off any hikes in May seem to have helped current standings.

In ANZ’s case, the bank decided to continue with interest rates hike on mortgages during second Fridays of each month, despite the RBA directive. As a result, customer satisfaction dipped by .6 percent, with an overall rate of 73.2 percent.

The figures came from Roy Morgan Research.

NAB and Commonwealth Bank emerged number one and two respectively, when these banks used to do poorly with its customers.  NAB’s head Lisa Gray credits their new winning status to the abolition of bank fees, which the company has set three years ago.

Westpac, meanwhile, acknowledges that customers are engaging differently with banks these days, with technology use becoming a big factor. The company has recently launched its newest iPad application to support and improve its mobile banking service.