This came out of a recent survey Bain carried out in SA which revealed the big four banks had a net promoter score of 22% compared with an average of 70% for the specialist banks.
The survey had sought to find out how likely local bank customers were to recommend their bank to a friend or colleague.
The high scores of specialist banks such as Investec and Capitec could be because they concentrated on a particular or single market segment‚ said Innocent Dutiro‚ a partner at Bain.
Bain said promoters stayed longer with their specialist banking provider‚ were less price-sensitive‚ spent more‚ cost less to serve and generated new business through word of mouth recommendations to their friends and colleagues.
Dutiro said there was no ideal local or global individual or average net promoter score for universal banks such as the big four in SA. However‚ he said the target should be to achieve individual scores higher than those of rivals or even of the combined group average if banks wanted customers to become their brand ambassadors.
Local banks have always used customer service as one of the benchmarks to measure customer growth and retention. But they have been intensifying the implementation of strategies to innovate and also lower fees and charges to grow and protect market share.
These measures are also in anticipation of the introduction by the Financial Services Board - probably next year - of the new treating customers fairly policy aimed at the financial sector.
Last week Don Peppers‚ the founding partner of another global consultancy group‚ Peppers & Rogers‚ Don Peppers said banks and other companies in the financial sector in SA should aim to gain what he described as the "extreme trust" of customers.
Dutiro said banks should invest in customer service by starting with the basics and identify identifying factors that would make a customer either a promoter or detractor. For example‚ he said it made no sense to invest in "flashy" branches when customers complained about long queues or errors in their bank statements.
Michael Jordaan‚ the CEO of First National Bank‚ last week said his bank was constantly using feedback from customers to innovate and improve service. "Our biggest source of information to improve ourselves (are) customer complaints‚" he said.
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