BMO InvestorLine and CIBC online banking won top honours as the premier online financial services firms in terms of email responsiveness for Canadians, according to the newly released 2007 Surviscor Customer Efficiency Ratings (CERs).

BMO InvestorLine took top honours in Canadian online discount brokerage for the 12-month period ending Dec. 31, 2007. In addition, BMO InvestorLine was the only firm in Canada to receive the Platinum designation awarded to firms that average a response time of less than 12 hours.

“Increasingly more of our clients prefer to communicate with us by email. it is important that we are responsive and provide them with the information they need in a timely and accurate way. We are proud to be rewarded top honours in this category.” says Connie Stefankiewicz, president and CEO of BMO InvestorLine.

CIBC was the outright winner in Canadian online banking.

Surviscor’s analysis indicated a major gap between the top and bottom firms in terms of hours to respond to general email enquiries. The online banking results were affected by poor results by a few credit unions and some independent banks.

The CERs reflect the level of email service provided by online firms. “Email responsiveness is an integral part of the online experience for users and it should not be taken lightly by consumers or firms” says Glenn LaCoste, Surviscor president.

The CER measures a firm’s responsiveness to a 12-month series of emails as compared to other online firms in the industry.

Surviscor tracks all correspondence with a firm, the time to respond and the validity of the answer provided. The proprietary CER is then determined using a peer-based formula within the industry.

Oakville, Ont.-based Surviscor has been collecting email data for nearly two years. It says the 2007 overall CER results continue to be puzzling.

“We are shocked with the lack of attention of some firms to the emails they receive. The online discount brokerage industry has traditionally performed better than online banking firms; however, the larger banks with the odd exception, perform adequately.” says LaCoste.

“Can you imagine having to wait 5 days, on average, for a simple response?” The average response time for online discount brokerage was 2.85 days, and online retail banking was 5.10 days. The top 10 financial services firms recorded an average of 0.81 days to respond, considered gold standard at Surviscor. Surviscor capped the response time at 10 days in 2007 and has reduced the cap to 5 days for 2008’s analysis.