A new survey from JD Power and Associates shows that customer service leaves much to be desired at some of the largest U.S. banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE: JPM), Citigroup Inc (NYSE: C), and Bank of America Corp (NYSE: BAC).
JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citibank all scored consistently at or near the bottom for customer service in the regions they serve, according to the survey. Community and regional banks faired far better than their large-cap counterparts in customer service.
Although smaller community banks were marked as providing the best customer service, the difference in satisfaction levels may not be that significant. In most of the regions that JD Power’s customer satisfaction index scored for, the best banks scores were only about 10-15% better than the banks which offered the weakest level of customer service.
“It’s spotty and it’s very geographic. US Bancorp, for example, has done well in some regions and not in others. That’s the challenge for the larger banks — how do they create a consistent level of delivery,” he said.
J.D. Power compiled its 2010 U.S. Retail Banking Satisfaction Study based on the responses of 48,000 online respondents. The most recent edition of the four-year-old survey was conducted in January and February of this year.
