According to the annual American Customer Satisfaction Index, Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) has topped all the largest banks in America for customer satisfaction, it recently revealed.
Year-over-year Wells enjoyed an increase in their customer satisfaction rating by 1.4 percent. The overall score of the company came in at 73.
Interestingly, their acquisition of Wachovia has been attributed to their score increase, as it was noted by some that Wachovia had a better score than Wells Fargo on the former Index scores prior to the acquisition.
Customers satisfaction at Wells Fargo’s major large competitors didn’t fare as well, as Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) found its score plunging by eight points to 67, showing their acquisition of Merrill Lynch did nothing to help their cause. While J.P. Morgan (NYSE:JPM) didn’t have a great go of it either, as their customer satisfaction score also plummeted, in their case by seven points to end with a score of 68. Their acquisition of Washington Mutual’s assets did nothing to help them either.
While the performance gave some bragging rights to Wells Fargo in the large banking segment, it wasn’t the highest score by far in the financial sector, as a number smaller regional banks, along with credit unions, were awarded higher marks for their customer service performance in relationship to all the larger banks and financial institutions.
Beyond the customer service factor for business, it has increasingly become an important part of the industry in relationship to politics and regulations, as the better satisfied customers are, it seems, the less negative press and pressure are applied to them concerning their performance over the last several years.
In that regard Wells Fargo seems to have positioned themselves strongly through their Wachovia acquisition to bring favor upon themselves at a time when there is very little to go around, especially among the large banks, which Wells Fargo is among the top four in America.
