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Wealthy clients are officially harder to please when it comes to banking customer satisfaction, according to the latest Roy Morgan Research Consumer Single Source report.
While consumer satisfaction with the big four banks rose to an 18-year high of 79.7% last month, ‘higher value’ customers (those with incomes over $70,000p.a.) at each of the major banks proved less content than other market segments.
This presents a problem for the big four, considering that this segment, which makes up only 19.8% of the population, accounts for 44% of the value of the total market for financial services (total footings). It is therefore incredibly important for lenders to improve the satisfaction levels and retention of this highly profitable segment.
“Although the satisfaction with banks among their personal customers remains at historically high levels, it appears that the more valuable higher income individuals and business customers have much lower satisfaction levels than the majority of customers - and yet they are the ones with the greatest profit potential,” says Roy Morgan Research industry communications director, Norman Morris.
Morris says the major banks will need to increase their focus on wealthier customers, as they’re more likely to face increased competition from specialist banks and other financial institutions that will ‘cherry pick’ these high value clients.
“Our research shows that around 400,000 people and over 200,000 businesses intend to switch their main financial institution over the next twelve months. This indicates a readiness to moving banks if the need arises. In this situation, the key focus of the banks will be the need to retain and attract the customers with the greatest potential rather than letting them just drift off.”
#pb# Earlier this week, Australian Broker reported on Roy Morgan Research’s findings that, despite a strong focus on customer retention, more than a million customers have stopped dealing with a financial institution in the last twelve months.
The majority, 855,000 people, ended a relationship with a bank, 65,000 stopped dealing with a credit union, 18,000 dropped a building society and 140,000 ended their relationship with some other financial institution.
