Reputation Survey Finds Decline in Consumers’ Bank Opinions
For the first time in five years, bank reputations are on the decline, according to the eighth Annual Survey of Bank Reputations conducted by American Banker and the Reputation Institute. The yearly study measures U.S. consumers’ perceptions of major bank brands.
“There has been a global erosion of trust around corporations, not even specific to banking, but corporations in general,” Bradley Hecht, a senior managing director with the Reputation Institute told American Banker. “The trust level of banks has continued to drop relative to the point that less than half of customers and just a quarter of noncustomers give banks the benefit of the doubt in a crisis situation.”
In a press release announcing the study’s results, the Reputation Institute found that the 2018 U.S. Banking industry’s reputation dropped to the midrange of average in 2017, which is its lowest point since 2015. It also found that bank reputations declined similarly with both customers and non-customers in 2017.
“A strong reputation is especially important for a bank as it facilitates customer appeal and loyalty, operating license from policymakers and regulators, and employee attraction and retention,” Hecht said in the press release. “For the first time, governance is the leading banking industry driver and citizenship is among the top three drivers for both customers and non-customers, indicating a shift in consumer priorities.”
Given governance’s role as a top driver of reputation, bank CEOs may play a more important role than ever before in how their companies are perceived. An American Banker analysis of the survey data found that “the reputation scores of banks were six points higher among customers who were familiar with the CEO, compared with customers who were unfamiliar with the CEO.”
In some cases, that six-point boost was enough to push bank opinion from “strong” to “excellent” on the 100-point scale.
The full results will be released on a webinar scheduled for July 12.
