Some Banks Lose Ground with Customers

According to Forrester Research, 15 financial firms of 34 studied lost ground with their customers this year. The study was a survey of more than 5,000 U.S. households. Those 15 firms lost about five percentage points each this year on "customer advocacy."

Forrester defines customer advocacy as the feeling by customers that their financial provider is doing what's best for them.

Of the 34 companies that were ranked for the study, only seven had a majority of their customers rate them high on customer advocacy - five of those seven were customer owned. The lowest ranked providers were the three largest U.S. banks studied. However, the next two largest U.S. banks -Wells Fargo and Wachovia - scored much better with almost twice as many customers rating them high on customer advocacy than the three largest banks.

Copyright © 2005 Bankers' Hotline. Originally appeared in Bankers' Hotline, Vol. 15, No. 7, 7/05