A Decline in the Quality of Australian Financial Services

Australia Customer Experience Index (CX Index) of both the banking and superannuation industries has declined significantly, with the average CX scores falling from 69.2 to 60.5 and 66.7 to 62.5 on a 100-point scale.

FREMONT, CA: The customer experience quality of the banking and superannuation businesses has drastically decreased, Australia Customer Experience Index (CX Index), with the average CX ratings decreasing from 69.2 to 60.5 and 66.7 to 62.5 (on a 100-point scale), respectively.

This year, only Bendigo Bank, Macquarie Bank, and Suncorp brands have offered good customer service, with the remaining financial services companies stuck in the ok and poor categories. The CX quality of financial services brands across the banking and superannuation industries is measured by Forrester's Australia CX Index. It is based on data from a survey of more than 7,200 adult consumers in Australia. These comprised 2,400 clients of eight banks and 2,108 clients of seven Australian superannuation companies.

According to Forrester's CX Index, a customer's perception of an experience has a greater impact on their brand loyalty than the experience's simplicity or efficiency. Ninety per cent of Australian bank clients who felt appreciated intend to stick with the bank, and 81% intend to spend more and promote it.

For dissatisfied customers, however, only 24 per cent intend to stick with their superannuation company, 12 per cent intend to contribute more, and 10 per cent intend to advocate for it. Most banks in the banking sector reported a dip in their rankings, with National Australia Bank (NAB) and ANZ experiencing a statistically significant drop. The only bank to see a small score improvement is Commonwealth Bank.

With the highest percentage of customers reporting good experiences (56 per cent) and the best performance across all three categories of CX quality, Bendigo Bank, a new participant in this year's research, emerged as the CX leader in effectiveness, ease, and emotion.

To digitise the right experiences while maintaining a firm commitment to providing human customer service, the bank adopted digital by design, human when it matters, as its primary operating strategy.

The CX score of every brand in the superannuation market also decreased. Overall, more clients (47 per cent) received bad or extremely poor customer service than (38%) had good or excellent service. MLC Australia performed the lowest, and Colonial First State (CFS) rose to the top of the standings from second.

Customer service, the driver category with the biggest influence on superannuation providers' CX Index rankings, was performed by CFS above average. Since the pandemic, several financial services organisations have been racing to offer wholly digital experiences to entice customers away from physical channels.

However, according to statistics, hybrid CX works better than both completely digital and completely physical events. In comparison to the prior year, the quality of hybrid CX provided by Australian brands was unchanged in 2022. Brands must do more to link appropriate and timely human connection with the digital experience.