In the congested market for research tracking customers' satisfaction with their banks, one research house - DBM Consultants - has secured a minor advance on its rivals, courtesy of the choices of Commonwealth Bank of Australia.DBM's business customer satisfaction findings are now relied on, in part, in the scorecard used by the board of CBA in working out the bonuses payable to a number of bank executives, including that of the outgoing chief executive, Ralph Norris.When the CBA board first adopted this approach in 2007 (and publicised it in connection with the bonus arrangements for Norris) the bank selected the TNS Business Finance Monitor as one of three widely circulated surveys that help define the non-financial objectives considered in working out executive bonuses. The other two were surveys from Roy Morgan Research, on the consumer market, and Wealth Insights, on wealth management.When formulated in 2007, the three surveys accounted for most of the criteria relevant to the CEO's bonus, though the board watered these down and made financial criteria (principally CBA's profit relative to other major banks) more prominent.Non-financial objectives remain important, however. They account for 50 per cent of the scorecard used to work out the bonuses of executives "managing business units", according to the bank's 2011 annual report, released yesterday.For executives "managing support functions" non-financial criteria are relevant to 70 per cent of their bonus.DBM Consultants, a firm with long-standing contracts producing bespoke research for banks, began to undertake and syndicate research into the customer in the first half of 2009.The CBA annual report goes so far as to describe the DBM research as "the new industry currency", a claim that may irritate the firms producing competing surveys: TNS, Roy Morgan (which also produces research on business banking) and East & Partners.As of June 2011, Commonwealth Bank ranked second in DBM's whole-of-market ranking. DBM confirmed this ranking in its update for July 2011, released yesterday.