ANZ focused on customer satisfaction

ANZ focused on customer satisfaction

ANZ said it would continue to work on its customer satisfaction ratings following the results of today’s University of Auckland Business School annual survey of New Zealand banks.

The survey, which measures customer satisfaction and loyalty, showed ANZ’s standing among business and residential customers had dropped by 7% to 52%, compared to 59% last year. The survey showed most banks have experienced a decrease in customer satisfaction.

The University of Auckland survey follows the release earlier this month of the results of a banking service survey conducted by Consumer magazine, which showed ANZ was the only bank to achieve a double-digit increase in customer satisfaction, with satisfaction improving 12 percentage points – or by 23% - to achieve a rating of 64%.

ANZ Managing Director Greg Camm said the bank remains focused on rebuilding customer satisfaction and believes changes the bank has made in the past two years will make a difference.

“The Consumer survey and our own research contradict the Auckland University survey, but we’re not focused on that. The key is that we are not doing well enough in customer satisfaction, and we are determined to turn that around by getting to know our customers better, and delivering more of what they want.

“Over the past year we’ve increased frontline staff by 130, opened a new branch in Christchurch and are about to open in Whangaparaoa. We’re also looking at opening branches in Wellington, Christchurch, Auckland and Hamilton. Our frontline teams have been freed up to take more responsibility for meeting their customers’ needs. We’ve invested millions in staff training. Our handling of customer complaints has improved, and as a result there has been a very sharp decline in our share of complaints to the Banking Ombudsman.

Mr Camm said the bank’s research showed ANZ was making some headway.

“Our staff are our harshest judges and they can see the change happening, in fact our staff satisfaction has climbed from 55% in 2000 to 88% this year. “We have moved into market leading positions in the corporate and institutional markets in the past few years and I am confident we will achieve the same result with our personal banking and small business customers.”

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