Online but not on board

Businesses are making much greater use of the internet to do their banking but they are not enjoying the experience all that much.

According to the latest East & Partners business banking customer satisfaction report, internet is the most commonly used banking channel by a wide margin.

Almost 90 per cent of respondents to the latest survey, done in March, said they use an online banking service "to interact with their primary business bank".

Compared to that level of usage, 62 per cent of respondents said they use a relationship manager or business banker, 59 per cent said they use a product specialist, 19.5 per cent use ATMs, 9.7 per cent use the branches and 4.8 per cent use a call centre.

Use of the internet has almost doubled over the past year. In a survey done in April last year about 48 per cent said they used the internet to interact with their bank.

Use of business bankers and product specialists is also increasing but at a lower rate. Use of ATMs is steady and use of branches and call centres is declining.

Despite the widespread use of online services, business customers give the services only an average rating.

Business bankers, product specialists and ATMs were given high "channel satisfaction" scores (all got scores of six or more out of 10).

Online banking, call centres, automated telephone services and branches all received below average scores. The banks have some work to do in those areas.

St George Bank got the highest ratings for its business bankers, branch service, online channel and call centre. ANZ got the highest rating for its product specialists, Commonwealth for its ATMs and Westpac for its automated telephone service.