NAB the big business satisfaction improver in 2014
As 2014 comes to an end, NAB has made up ground on its Big Four rivals in terms of satisfaction among its all-important business customers, according to DBM Consultants' final Business Financial Services Monitor for the year.
"A year ago, NAB was lagging some way behind the other Big Four banks, with the BFSM November 2013 results showing NAB ranked fourth on 6.9, with the other three majors well ahead," DBM reported.
Now NAB has a rating of 7.1 and has caught up with ANZ (7.1), while also closing the gap with the Commonwealth Bank (7.4) and Westpac (7.5).
"NAB's improvement has been evident since April 2014," DBM director Maria Claridad said. "Clearly, customers have responded well to NAB's stated focus on its business bank. And while some of the improved ratings started before NAB's new management team was in place, it is still evident that businesses are responding positively to change."
Westpac, too, will be happy with its progress in 2014, suggested DBM. The bank started from a strong position, albeit on a shared top spot with the Commonwealth Bank at the end of last year. Since then, Westpac's customer satisfaction ratings have edged up a notch or two in each category, while CBA has slipped by an equal margin.
On DBM's ratings, Westpac has enjoyed rising satisfaction among its micro business customers, up from 7.3 to 7.5 and among small businesses from 7.5 to 7.6. It is now ranked first in the small business segment.
"Westpac's achievement in small business is particularly impressive, considering all of the other major banks have experienced noticeably lower satisfaction ratings than what they had last year," said Claridad.
Ratings given to the Big Four by their medium and large business customers are almost identical to November 2013 levels - as measured by DBM.
This overlooks some significant movements throughout 2014, however - most noticeably CBA, where ratings among its medium-sized business customers improved from 7.5 to 7.9 in the first half of 2014, before "settling back" to 7.5 three months after that peak.