Roy Morgan discounted at CBA

Commonwealth Bank will ignore adverse trends in customer satisfaction with the bank and pay staff a four per cent annual bonus.

CBA management accepted a union effort to lay the blame for falling ratings on central decision-makers.

In November 2010, the Finance Sector Union called on the bank to suspend its performance measuring methods, in particular the customer survey for the last quarter of the year, in light of the adverse customer response to the bank's hike in margins on home loans. This pricing lead was then copied by many other lenders.

Roy Morgan data shows a decline of 1.6 percentage points over the December 2010 quarter in the number of customers who say they are satisfied with the bank. This wiped out half the gains made over the previous nine months.

In the six months up to October 2010, the satisfaction level of CBA home-loan customers was 73.9 per cent. But, since the interest rate increase in the beginning of November, this has declined to a 56.5 per cent average for November and December, which is the lowest for any period over the last five years.

In the same period CBA's non-home loan customers also showed a decline in satisfaction, from 75.7 per cent in the six months to October to an average of 70.5 per cent for the months of November and December 2010.

Ross McEwan, head of CBA's retail bank, told staff two weeks ago that survey results for the half yearly performance review will be recorded as "meets expectation", even though in many cases this is not the case.

McEwan told staff, "I believe that the disappointing results of the last two Roy Morgan customer satisfaction surveys are related to our customers' views on our November interest rate changes.

"For this reason, and in line with my commitment to ensure that we treat our people fairly, where Roy Morgan is the basis for your customer service rating a "meets expectation" should be recorded in your half yearly performance review."  

It is not clear how many CBA line-staff have bonuses tied to Roy Morgan ratings or how much of the bonus relies on this score. However, many thousands of staff have bonuses tied to some degree to Roy Morgan, as is the case with executives.