eDigitalResearch's First Ever e-Finance Study Reveals that Traditional Banks are Beating Online at Their Own Game

Four out of the top five performing websites for customer service are high street banks.

(PRWEB) June 11, 2009 -- eDigitalResearch has today announced the results of its first ever e-finance benchmark study, which has revealed that high street banks are successfully migrating their good customer service online and beating their online counterparts to strengthen brand loyalty even further.

Lloyds TSB topped the ranking table overall, with a consistently high score across all fields of the research. This included telephone and email support, which many forget plays a vital part in customer satisfaction. First Direct and Alliance & Leicester achieved second and third places in the overall ranking, with Halifax and Royal Bank of Scotland completing the top five.

The e-finance benchmark study uses eDigitalResearch's eMysteryShopper tool, which enables users to go through the complete customer process on a website, reporting their experiences at every stage. Over 200 questions were asked about the site's home page, financial product offering, account area, customer service (telephone and email), customer service guidance and final assessment. The survey is the only one of its kind available to the financial sector, and highlights where both pureplay banks (just online) and high street banks (with an offline presence as well) are succeeding and need to improve.

"This is an interesting first survey," comments Derek Eccleston, Head of Research at eDigitalResearch. "High street banks are the clear winners, having switched on to the need for a strong online presence to complement their physical outlets. These are tough times in the banking sector, high street operators are clearly recognising that the key to retaining and gaining customers is through the whole online experience, which needs to be consistently supported. Just because pureplay suppliers do not have the overheads their rivals do, they still need to offer a quality service to attract and keep customers. Brand loyalty is key in economic times such as these."

The e-finance index will continue to run bi-annually, and aims to create a benchmarking study to show how the online finance sector develops over time.

If you would like to see the presentation with the full leagues and the insight leaflet then please visit:

https://ecustomeropinions.com/survey/survey.php?sid=870630174

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