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Are you really happy with your bank? - Times Online
Are you really happy with your bank?
A BBC survey suggests most people consider banks fair-minded - but the results are misleading
Are you satisfied with your bank? Probably yes — at least if a survey published last week by the BBC is anything to go by.
The study of 1,001 people suggested that 93 per cent of us are happy with our bank. The British Bankers’ Association (otherwise known as the defenders of the indefensible) immediately seized on this as evidence that banks are not the incompetent, mean-spirited and greedy institutions the media are so keen to portray them as.
On the contrary, the Bankers’ Association suggested that banks are actually worthy, fair-minded and generous institutions, quietly getting on with the job of making our lives easier and less stressful.
Well, not quite. Before we fall over ourselves to thank the banks for how wonderful they have been over the past few years, some issues need clearing up —not least with the survey itself.
For a start, the headline 93 per cent figure is misleading. The study did not find that 93 per cent of people were happy with their bank. It found that 93 per cent of people who had not changed account in the past two years were happy with their bank. Given that 8 per cent of customers had changed account, the proportion that is happy is actually the less respectable (although still surprisingly high) 86 per cent.
Extrapolating this to the population as a whole means that an astonishing seven million people are not happy with their bank. If that is something the British Bankers’ Association is proud of, it shows just how far the industry still has to go. If 14 per cent of this newspaper’s readers were unhappy with us each year, we would quickly cease to operate. (We can only long for the day when switching banks is as easy as switching newspapers).
Without wishing to become overly philosophical, it is also worth asking — what does happiness actually mean? With such low expectations of banks, most customers are probably just happy not to have been mis-sold insurance or had their Isa interest rate cut to 0.1 per cent. (Sadly, given the way the banks operate, many customers probably do not know if this has happened to them anyway so their “happiness” is only blissful ignorance.) Happiness, we should remember, is relative and, tellingly, half of the people questioned thought that all bank accounts were the same.
In other words, bank customers are “happy” as long as they do not think that they are getting a worse service than they would from a rival. With most customers thinking that all banks as just as bad as each other, poor service and woeful products become accepted as ordinary.
Had the survey asked different questions, the results would most likely have been dramatically different. To prove this point, we asked our readers to answer the following two questions on our website this week: has your bank ever treated you unfairly; and do you think that customer service at banks is better or worse than other industries? In the first case, 73 per cent of readers said their bank had treated them unfairly, and 68 per cent said that customer service was poorer than average. Of course, our survey is a long way from scientific but even so, the results sit at odds with the idea that the vast majority of customers genuinely are happy with their bank.
It would be wrong to argue that all customers are receiving a bad service. First Direct, for example, is a bank often rightly singled out for praise. However, it is galling to see an industry that has treated customers with such contempt over the years try to pretend that it is a shining beacon of worthiness.
Are you really happy with your bank?
A BBC survey suggests most people consider banks fair-minded - but the results are misleading
Are you satisfied with your bank? Probably yes — at least if a survey published last week by the BBC is anything to go by.
The study of 1,001 people suggested that 93 per cent of us are happy with our bank. The British Bankers’ Association (otherwise known as the defenders of the indefensible) immediately seized on this as evidence that banks are not the incompetent, mean-spirited and greedy institutions the media are so keen to portray them as.
On the contrary, the Bankers’ Association suggested that banks are actually worthy, fair-minded and generous institutions, quietly getting on with the job of making our lives easier and less stressful.
Well, not quite. Before we fall over ourselves to thank the banks for how wonderful they have been over the past few years, some issues need clearing up —not least with the survey itself.
For a start, the headline 93 per cent figure is misleading. The study did not find that 93 per cent of people were happy with their bank. It found that 93 per cent of people who had not changed account in the past two years were happy with their bank. Given that 8 per cent of customers had changed account, the proportion that is happy is actually the less respectable (although still surprisingly high) 86 per cent.
Extrapolating this to the population as a whole means that an astonishing seven million people are not happy with their bank. If that is something the British Bankers’ Association is proud of, it shows just how far the industry still has to go. If 14 per cent of this newspaper’s readers were unhappy with us each year, we would quickly cease to operate. (We can only long for the day when switching banks is as easy as switching newspapers).
Without wishing to become overly philosophical, it is also worth asking — what does happiness actually mean? With such low expectations of banks, most customers are probably just happy not to have been mis-sold insurance or had their Isa interest rate cut to 0.1 per cent. (Sadly, given the way the banks operate, many customers probably do not know if this has happened to them anyway so their “happiness” is only blissful ignorance.) Happiness, we should remember, is relative and, tellingly, half of the people questioned thought that all bank accounts were the same.
In other words, bank customers are “happy” as long as they do not think that they are getting a worse service than they would from a rival. With most customers thinking that all banks as just as bad as each other, poor service and woeful products become accepted as ordinary.
Had the survey asked different questions, the results would most likely have been dramatically different. To prove this point, we asked our readers to answer the following two questions on our website this week: has your bank ever treated you unfairly; and do you think that customer service at banks is better or worse than other industries? In the first case, 73 per cent of readers said their bank had treated them unfairly, and 68 per cent said that customer service was poorer than average. Of course, our survey is a long way from scientific but even so, the results sit at odds with the idea that the vast majority of customers genuinely are happy with their bank.
It would be wrong to argue that all customers are receiving a bad service. First Direct, for example, is a bank often rightly singled out for praise. However, it is galling to see an industry that has treated customers with such contempt over the years try to pretend that it is a shining beacon of worthiness.
(sorry)
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