Canada’s credit unions continue to outpace their big bank counterparts in overall customer service, and consumers find little to choose between the big banks when it comes to financial planning and advice, according to the latest results of an ongoing consumer survey from Ipsos.
The global market research firm published its annual list of customer service winners in Canada’s banking industry for 2016 based on its online surveys. The overall leader in customer service in the retail banking sector remains the credit unions, which have taken the top score for 12 years in a row.
In terms of online banking and mobile banking, the credit unions also scored highly, as did Tangerine, which ranked highest, or co-highest in six categories. PC Financial and Tangerine were rated best in terms of “value for money” in the survey.
As for the financial planning and advice category, the credit unions, Desjardins Group and four of the Big Five banks — Bank of Montreal, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Royal Bank of Canada and Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD) — were in a statistical dead heat. And looking only at the Big Five banks, all ranked equally for providing planning and advice.
Among the Big Five, TD took the top overall score for customer service, which it has also managed to do for 12 years in a row.
The awards are based on the combined results of 47,305 surveys conducted as part of an ongoing quarterly customer service index survey, which is drawn from the Ipsos online global opinion panel for Canada.
The survey asks consumers to rate their own primary and secondary financial services institutions in terms of their experience in various areas including in-branch, online, mobile, ATM and telephone banking.
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