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Banks did not respond to 47.3% of customer complaints requiring their attention and action on social media, says BrandsEye.
- BrandsEye’s Annual Banking Sentiment Index reveals that African Bank had the most positive mentions on social media this year.
- On the other hand, Discovery Bank had the worst.
- BrandsEye also found that in the early days of the lockdown, customer inquiries on social media increased by 61%.
The social distance between banks and their customers, created by Covid-19, has left many unhappy as overwhelmed banks fail to keep up with their customers’ frustrations on social media, according to the latest Bank Sentiment Index from South Africa.
The index, compiled by customer experience data provider BrandsEye, reveals that during the early phases of the lockdown, more customers used social media to communicate with their banks. Conversation volumes increased by 61%, while the response rate from banks to customers during the same period dropped by 39%.
“With the influx of customers seeking assistance on digital channels, banks struggled to keep up with the demand for support on social networks. 47.3% of priority conversations with customers (those that require attention and action by banks) on social media banks received no response, “wrote BrandsEye.
Monitor the behavior of banks towards their customers
While BrandsEye has compiled the South African Banking Sentiment Index annually since 2015, this year’s index was more than just determining which bank has the most dissatisfied customers on social media.
The Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) used the index to measure the Standard of Banking Conduct for banks, which the regulator launched in July.
The Standard is based on the six outcomes of Treat Customers Fairly (TCF).
In the past, TCF regulations only monitored the conduct of insurers, as the FSCA’s predecessor, the Financial Services Board, did not regulate banks.
Looking at data that BrandsEye collected from more than two million social media posts about South African banks between September 2019 and August 2020, FSCA divisional regulatory policy executive Caroline Da Silva said that 90.7 % of customer complaints on social media included issues of fair or unfair treatment of customers or TCF compliance issues.
These ranged from complaints about unauthorized debit orders to complicated product structures and misleading advertising.
“Social media is indeed a rich source of behavior-related conversation that banks should pay close attention to. As a regulator, we are concerned about the volume of complaints that BrandsEye has identified,” Da Silva wrote in the report.
The FSCA and BrandsEye said that the fact that almost half of the customer conversations that required the banks’ attention and action went unanswered “should be alarming to the industry” because if the banks had paid more attention to them, they would have avoided reputational damage and escalating complaints. to the regulator.
But because they are missing out on doing something when these complaints arise, “they run the risk of facing hefty fines from the regulator, as well as significant reputational risks that such penalties would generate,” the report read.
African Bank Scores Highest and Discovery Bank Lowest
According to the report, Nedbank and African Bank were the two most responsive banks and Discovery Bank the least responsive.
He said that Discovery Bank only responded to about one in 10 interactions that required his attention and action.
Overall, African Bank received the most positive posts on social media during the data collection period, followed by Capitec. Discovery had the most negative customer sentiment, scoring the lowest in net sentiment, after FNB.
On the positive side, the net sentiment score of the eight banks included in the report, which include the big four, Capitec, TymeBank, Discovery Bank and African Bank, improved by 0.9% percentage points compared to 2019.
The net sentiment score counts the percentage of positive feelings in social media posts, minus the percentage of negative feelings.
The sentiment score around response time for all banks, which is often the biggest source of frustrations for social media users, also improved, a phenomenon that BrandsEye attributed to increased adoption of digital channels by consumers. banks as a result of Covid-19.
