Capitec remains king of satisfaction
Capitec’s customers remain the most satisfied among retail banks in South Africa, but the Big Four are catching up, says Consulta.
Its latest South African Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) says Capitec customers’ satisfaction levels have dipped marginally for the first time in four years while FNB and Nedbank are on the rise. The bar is high; Capitec’s CSI has risen steadily from 79 points in 2012, hitting a high mark of 83.8 in 2015 and retreating slightly to 83.1 last year.
FNB has never been far off the high mark, rising from 79.5 in 2012 to 79.8 in 2015 and peaking at 81.3 last year. Nedbank has shown a struggle to improvement, and the struggle is continuing. Although hitting just 77 points last year (from 78.6 in 2012), that’s a far cry from the 74.3 and 74.8 it hit in 2013 and 2014.
Absa has flatlined at a pedestrian pace, from 75.7 in 2012 to 74.3 in 2015 and 74.2 last year.
Standard Bank is struggling. From 77.2 in 2012, it hit a then-low of 73 in 2015 and plumbed even lower to 71.9 last year.
“The competition is on. The rest of the banks have reacted to their breakfast being stolen [by Capitec].
“They’ve focused on the lower income market and have created strong value propositions,” said Professor Adré Schreuder, chief executive of Consulta.
He said Capitec’s dip may be due to the pressure exerted on its infrastructure and subsequent service levels, whereas large infrastructure at the big banks may have helped them roll out new offerings with relative ease. Still Capitec achieved the highest net promoter score (NPS) of 53%.
NPS measures the likelihood that customers that would recommend the bank to others compared with those that would not. FNB scored 47%, Nedbank 26%, Absa 13% and Standard Bank 7%. The average score across the industry is 25%.
Low loyalty scores should be an area of great concern