OAKVILLE, ON, Jan 28 / www.surviscor.com – RBC Royal Bank and Qtrade have been awarded top honours in Surviscor’s 2009 Customer Email Responsiveness (CER) review. RBC Royal Bank becomes the first firm to defend its title in the Canadian online banking sector while Qtrade dethroned BMO InvestorLine, winner in 2008 and 2007, to earn top honours in the Canadian online discount brokerage sector. The review was conducted between January 1st, 2009 and December 31st, 2009. The majority of the 45 financial services firms received 186 ‘mystery shopper’ emails in the 12-month period.
The Customer Email Responsiveness (CER) rating reflects the level of email service provided by online firms in response to general email enquiries. The response time averages continue to decrease year after year; however, the averages remain high. “Some would say that emails have replaced phone calls. The CER review would indicate that both existing and potential customers should not give up their phones.” said Glenn LaCoste, President of Surviscor. “The bottom line is even the best firms take nearly 6 hours to respond which is screaming out to us to avoid an email if you truly want an easy answer to an easy question.” added LaCoste. The average response time for the online banking industry decreased 12% to 3.91 days, from 4.37 days in 2008. Online brokerage firms faired better with an average of 1.63 days, down 40% from 2.71 days in 2008.
The Surviscor website holds extensive information on online banking and brokerage services in Canada mainly through its prominent scorCards. “Customers should use the information we provide to research their existing firms and any other potential firms” added LaCoste. “There are clear results that demonstrate that some firms are simply hands-down better at online services than others”. Each firm is tracked and is held accountable for its services by its performance in any of the reviews or scorCards. The website has a one-page summary of its results for public viewing on the site.
Surviscor is Canada’s premier online services research and consulting firm, and has been collecting email data since 2006. The CER is a peer-based measurement that measures the firm’s responsiveness to a 12-month series of emails as compared to other online firms in the industry. Surviscor tracks all correspondence with the firm, including the time to respond, the details of the email dialogue and the validity of the answer provided.
For further information or to purchase a summary report, contact Glenn LaCoste, President, at (416) 993-1246 or via email at info@surviscor.com. Full results and detailed company summaries can be found by visiting the Surviscor website at www.surviscor.com.