RBC tops TD in latest J.D. Power banking customer satisfaction survey

Royal Bank has claimed top spot among Canada's big five banksin J.D. Power's latest retail banking customers satisfaction survey, with Tangerine taking the honours among the country's mid-sized players for the fifth straight year.

Royal Bank scored 765 on a 1,000-point scale toknockoff TD Canada Trust, which had held top spot in the ranking for the first 10 years of the survey.TD scored 761, followed by BMO at 760, CIBCat 754 and Scotiabank at 753.

Among the mid-tier bank, Tangerine, which is owned by Scotiabank, scored 840. President's Choice Financial was second with a score of 789.

• Bank customer satisfaction waning amid high fees, less service

J.D. Power said customersatisfactionismeasured bysevenfactors in itssurvey:

• Product.
• Self-service.
• Personalservice.
• Facilities.
• Communication.
• Financial advisor.
• Problemresolution.

J.D. Power saidRoyal Bank performedparticularly well in all seven factors, most notably in its product offerings.

Overall, the survey revealed a rebound in customer satisfaction among customers of the big five banks, following a drop last year. J.D. Power said overall satisfaction improved by 23 points, after dropping 12 points in 2015, when customers noted they were paying higher fees but felt they were getting less service.

"The improvements indicate that customers are becoming less sensitive to new pricing structures, which caused satisfaction to tumble in 2015," said Paul McAdam, senior director of banking services at J.D. Power. "The banks are doing a better job communicating with their customers, who now are seeing the value they are getting in return for higher fees."

Improvement in mobile

The survey also revealed an upturn in satisfaction among customers using mobile banking.About 34 per cent of the bank customers surveyed said they used mobile channels, up from 27 per cent last year and 20 per cent in 2014.

J.D. Power said that back in 2014, mobile banking generated the lower satisfaction scores all of banking methods. By 2016, satisfaction with mobile banking had improved to trail only the in-person branch

"Mobileischangingcustomerinteractionmodelsandforcingbankstotransform,"saidMcAdam.

The J.D. Power satisfaction research profiles Canada's 13 largest primary financial institutions and is based on13,229 online surveys completed betweenMarch 25 and April 18.A probabilistic sample of this size would yield a margin of error of plus or minus2.5 per cent, 19 times out of 20. To qualify for the survey, respondents had to identify the primary financial institution they use to conduct their personal banking business.