Customer satisfaction is the best way to measure the success of a banking app. Even with the most innovative features, if a mobile app doesn’t please customers, then what’s the point, right?
As the smartphone becomes the most popular channel for people do their banking, the pressure is high on banks to have a good mobile app. That means that not only does the bank have to deliver a plethora of services and products like virtual assistants, P2P payments, and reward-redeeming features, but it must do so instantly and seamlessly.
The user experience is all-important, especially when banks are competing with all types of apps outside the financial ecosystem. In fact, Rachel Kobetz, head of digital design at Bank of America, told Bank Innovation that the bank’s design team looks for inspiration and ideas for its own mobile app outside the banking world to technology and e-commerce entities.
So, which bank has the best mobile app? Two separate reports list USAA’s mobile app as the best mobile banking app, and by a wide margin.
A new report from the consultancy Forrester reviewed mobile apps from the seven largest banks in the U.S., while J.D. Power’s report, also released last week, looked at the ten of the country’s largest banks.
Both reports have USAA ranked first when it comes to customer satisfaction. The consumer insights firm J.D. Powers doesn’t list USAA as #1 in its report because the bank only serves a specific audience – members of the military and their families, a J.D. Powers spokesman told Bank Innovation. But the report acknowledges that USAA scored 30 points higher than the top-ranked Capital One (on a scale of 1 to 1000.)
In J.D. Power’s report USAA Bank scored 905, while Forrester scored it 79 out of 100.
Both reports measure customer satisfaction by looking at similar criteria: ease of navigation, appearance, clarity of information and range of services and features.
After rank one, the two reports begin to diverge. It is important to note the differences in the lists, meaning this is not a strictly “apples-to-apples” comparison. J.D. Power’s list includes BB&T Bank, Capital One, Citizens Bank, TD Bank and PNC, which is not included in Forrester’s list. Ally Bank, which is a part of Forrester’s report, is not included in that of J.D. Power.
Except for Bank of America, which ranks high on Forrester’s list and low on J.D. Powers’ report, the ranking of other banks is relatively similar.
Forrester has Bank of America second overall, whereas J.D. Powers has BofA as down at number six. On both reports, Wells Fargo and Chase rank somewhere in the middle, and Citi and U.S. Bank rank toward the bottom.
The overall customer satisfaction with banking apps has increased this year compared to the previous year, according to the J.D. Power report. The overall customer satisfaction score for retail banking mobile apps is 867/1,000, up 12 points from 2017, the report said.
J.D. Power’s report is based on responses from 6,272 retail bank and credit card customers nationwide conducted in April and May, this year. Forrester conducted its survey between February and March, using multiple devices to access and analyze mobile apps.
See the full reports here: J.D. Power Report and Forrester Banking Wave Report.