Regional banks and a recent national entrant into the Southeast banking market received the highest customer satisfaction scores in the 2022 J.D. Power rankings.
Meanwhile, Bank of America Corp., Truist Financial Corp., PNC Financial Services Group and Wells Fargo & Co. were listed at or in the bottom half of the 13 banks reviewed for Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.
The J.D. Power reports typically measures satisfaction based on five categories (in order of importance): ease of navigation; appearance; clarity of information; range of services; and availability of key information.
For the 2022 rankings, the group placed higher emphasis on digital banking and how customers felt their bank was helping them deal with inflation.
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The Southeast’s top performer was United Community Bank with a 730 score on 1,000-point scale.
Synovus Bank was second at 690, followed by First Citizens Bancshares Inc. at 692, Woodforest National Bank at 692 and JPMorgan Chase & Co. at 689.
Out of 13 banks ranked, Bank of America was seventh at 672, while PNC was 10th at 671, Wells Fargo 11th at 647 and Truist 12th at 640.
Before BB&T’s $33.4 billion purchase of SunTrust Banks Inc. that led to the formation of Truist, BB&T consistently ranked in the top tier for customer satisfaction.
Truist said it “had nothing to add” to the J.D. Power report.
Wells Fargo said in a statement that “we continue to focus on providing best-in-class products and services, and delivering meaningful, personalized customer experiences that are essential to building trust and driving customer satisfaction.”
“A customer’s definition of what support from their retail bank looks like is changing rapidly as we enter a new economic cycle and move further along the digital adoption curve,” said Jennifer White, senior consultant of banking intelligence at J.D. Power.
“It’s no longer predominately about being fast, efficient or convenient. The preeminent performance metric with the biggest influence on customer satisfaction is ‘supporting customer during challenging times.’
“That means customers are expecting a personalized mix of financial advice, hands-on help with problem resolution and guidance on how to grow their money,” White said.
J.D. Power said that banks’ struggles to deliver on customer expectations for personalization have led to nearly half of customers shifting to primarily digital-centric banking relationships.
Another finding is that “consumers are least satisfied when it comes to their bank’s ability to help save time or money.”
“Also of note: bank efforts to reduce fees are going unnoticed, and alerts and fee avoidance advice have become important personalization tools.”
Rankings were not much better, if not worse, for Bank of America, PNC, Truist and Wells Fargo in other areas of the country where they have enough of a market share presence to be ranked.
California: Bank of America ranked sixth and Wells Fargo seventh out of seven banks.
Florida: PNC ranked fourth, Wells Fargo seventh, Truist eighth, Bank of America ninth out of nine banks.
Lower Midwest (Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma): Bank of America ninth and Wells Fargo 13th out of 13 banks.
Mid-Atlantic (Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Washington, D.C.): PNC first, Bank of America third, Truist seventh, Wells Fargo eighth out of eight banks.
North Central (Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia): Bank of America second, PNC seventh, Truist ninth out of 15 banks.
Northwest (Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington): Bank of America sixth and Wells Fargo seventh out of seven banks.
New York Tristate (Connecticut, New Jersey, New York); PNC third, Bank of America fifth and Wells Fargo 16th out of 18 banks.
Pennsylvania: PNC fourth, Bank of America sixth, Truist 11th and Wells Fargo 14th out of 14 banks.
South Central (Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee); Bank of America fifth, Truist 11th, Wells Fargo 12th and PNC 13th out of 13 banks.
Southwest (Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming); Bank of America third and Wells Fargo seventh out of seven banks.
Texas: Bank of America sixth and Wells Fargo ninth out of nine banks.
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Source: journalnow.com
