CIMG 2022 Customer Satisfaction Index Report released
The 2022 Chartered Institute of Marketing Ghana (CIMG) Customer Satisfaction Index Report for Consumer Banking and Business Banking released has shot up by 3 per cent comparatively against the 2021 report.
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According to the report, which was released on Wednesday, September 20, 2023, five banks met the service quality standard placing the total score of the 2022 index at 98 per cent while only two banks met the threshold in 2021 with a total score of 95 per cent.
Out of the 22 banks, 19 were rated 5-star for their quality service while three banks were rated 4-star.
Overall customer satisfaction for traditional banking was 95 per cent as 21 banks were rated 5-star with only one bank getting a 4-star rating.
Also with traditional banking, overall, the level of service quality went up by 5 per cent, but there was a challenge when it came to digital banking where the overall industry declined by 1 per cent, sending a strong signal to the banks to improve technology to enable customers experience the level of service quality when it comes to digital banking.
Assessment
The CIMG measured the levels of service quality, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty for banking services before comparing the results of the level of service quality between 2021 and 2022.
In assessing the level of service quality in traditional banking, the researchers focused on five dimensions – Liability, Responsiveness, Assurance, Empathy and Tangibles.
In terms of the research design, this year, the CIMG used the mixed mode approach data collection rather than the face-to-face data collection. The mixed mode included online, face-to-face and telephone interviews. The telephone interviews were for business to business customers.
Findings
Presenting the report, CEO of Consumer Insights Consult, Ireneous Gundona, said in terms of Tangibles, all the banks had five stars, which meant the banks were doing well with regard to service to consumers. However, he said “when we compared the data of 2022 to 2021, two banks declined in their scores – Ecobank and SG Bank dropped in their scores but they still maintained their five star ratings.”
Ireneous Gundona presenting the report
He explained that with Reliability, 18 banks had five stars and four banks had four stars while with responsiveness, 16 banks had five stars, four banks had four stars and two banks had three stars.
“When it comes to traditional banking, we looked at the industry and although some banks experienced decline in their star ratings, there was an increase in the terms of service quality measure from 90 per cent in 2021 to 95 per cent in 2022 and all the indicators used went up.”
“For instance, in terms of liability there was an increment in 2022 as against 2021. Same as tangibles, assurance, empathy and responsiveness which all added some increment which also impacted overall industry performance of 5 per cent increment recorded in 2022. When we compared the data to 2021, Ecobank, SG Bank and Zenith Bank dropped in their star ratings. This is a bit worrying but the banks just need to pick up.”
Digital banking
With remote banking (customers who performed banking via their phones, laptops, tablets and other devices) the researchers used six dimensions, with the addition of Ease of Use to the original five dimensions used for traditional banking, to find out the level of quality of service which the banks deliver to their customers.
Here, the report indicated that under tangibles, only 13 banks had 5- stars, seven banks had 4- stars while four banks had 3-stars. Comparing this year’s data to 2021 indicated that seven banks dropped in terms of tangibles. Ecobank, SG Bank, Fidelity, UBA and First Atlantic Bank were some.
In terms of reliability under remote banking, it was only eight banks which had 5-stars, four banks had 4-stars, six banks had 3-stars while two banks had 2-stars. With Ease of Use, 12 banks had 5-stars, six banks had 4-stars and three banks had 3-stars.
“Comparatively, as much as seven banks declined when it came to Ease of Use in 2022. What this means is that when it comes to remote banking which has to do with technology, we still have a long way to go. This also means that traditional banking performed better than remote banking,” Mr Gundona explained further.
Respondents
On a whole, for Consumer Banking, 3300 respondents took part in the study but for Business Banking, there were 2200 customers as respondents. Participants were people of age 18 and above, who had existing and active accounts and must have transacted business with the banks three months prior to the collection of the data.
For the business to business customers, respondents needed to be key decision makers in their organizations before they were interviewed. The interviews were conducted between October and December in 2022.
Also, the interviewees were 70 per cent males and 30 per cent females. They were well educated with only one per cent being uneducated. Also, majority of them were youthful and they predominantly operated savings account with their mean income being around GH₵3000. 30 per cent of the respondents preferred traditional banking (customers who visit the bank to transact business), 18 per cent used remote banking while 52 per cent use both traditional and remote banking.
Additionally, the researchers developed the star rating, which ranged from 1-star to 5-stars depending on the result each bank scored. If a bank scored from 91 to 100 per cent, it is classified as 5-stars, 81 to 90 per cent is 4-stars, 71 to 80 per cent is 3-stars, 51 to 70 is 2-stars while 0 to 50 per cent is 1-star.
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Prudent use
At the event, the National President of CIMG, Dr D. Kasser Tee, urged the consumers of the report, particularly the banks, to learn how to put the results to good and prudent use.
He said they should first look beyond their positions on the various tables to identify how they fared, for each of the five dimensions of service quality, overall customer satisfaction and either dimension of customer loyalty.
“They should juxtapose their performance in each area to the customer’s indication of “how important” that particular dimension is to them, including the individual questions for the survey. Such an exercise would reveal to them areas where they may be unnecessarily strong, and areas where they need to truly improve their performance," he said.
The banks may then see the need to restrategise, reallocate resources and channel their energies to more pressing areas,” Dr Kasser Tee said.
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He said this year, his outfit expanded the study a notch further to cover Business Banking as well, unlike the maiden report that covered only Consumer Banking and by this, they collected and analysed separate data for Consumer banking and Business banking.
He also appealed to each of the 23 universal banks to subscribe to the report as the findings would be very useful in shaping their decisions and actions on the three important study variables of Service Quality, Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty, and their individual and combined effects on bank performance.
