Australia’s banks have experienced a surge in web traffic in the last six months as fired-up mortgage holders take to the internet in search of a better deal.
But as new data compiled for research firm Global Reviews for SmartCompany shows, many of these customers will not enjoy the process of comparing mortgage providers.
The latest Customer Experience Industry Benchmark report on the mortgage sector shows ING Direct and Westpac are the only home loan providers meeting the online experience expectations of their customers.
The Benchmark, which appears every month on SmartCompany, measures the online customer experience by examining a website’s content, features and functionality. Typically more than 400 individual criteria are evaluated.
Important criteria for the mortgage sector includes content that helps consumers figure out if they have the financial capacity to get a mortgage, which mortgage option is the right one, how they start the application process and how they contact the bank.
The end result is an Index score, which is presented as a percentage. A website with a score of below 55% is considered to have failed to meet expectations; a score between 55-68% is considered to have met expectations; a website with 68-83% has exceeded expectation; and anything above 83% is marked as outstanding.
The Global Reviews analysis of the mortgage sector, which was conducted in late 2010, examined eight mortgage providers: ANZ, Bankwest, CBA, Citibank, ING Direct, Mortgage Choice, NAB, St George, Suncorp and Westpac.
ING Direct, which is the Australian online-only subsidiary of Dutch banking giant ING, was the best performing, posting an Index score of 66%, suggesting it is meeting customer expectations, although not exceeding them.
Westpac was next with an Index score of 55%, while ANZ limped into third with 52.7% – firmly in the “failed to meet expectations” bracket.
Overall the sector posted an average Index score of just 46.3%, dragged down by one bank which posted a pathetic Index score of just 24%.
The average score for the sector fell 2% points in the last quarter of 2010, suggesting that while the banks might be ramping up their marketing efforts to win new customers, they are not matching this with new investment in their websites.
Global Reviews lead analyst Karen Grinter says ING has retained a significant lead over its rivals since investing in a major web redesign in 2009.
However, most lenders are simply making the process of finding a loan too difficult for customers and particularly those new to the sector.
“Most lenders do not make it easy to find the most suitable loan – customers must try to understand complex comparison tables and work out which would match their usage,” Grinter says.
“Most lenders fail to provide content that explains the financial impact of the purchase, there are poor explanations of costs involved and it’s difficult to find information on fees.”
Curiously, given that a single home loan can produce thousands of dollars in fees over the life of a loan, the research suggests that the banks also provide little information about what happens after an application is made, and how its progress can be tracked.
James was the editor and publisher of SmartCompany and LeadingCompany for five years. He is now the Australian Financial Review‘s companies & markets editor, and a former BRW editor.
