The Science of Customer Satisfaction in the Retail Banking System- A Critical Comparison between the Two International Indexes: Net Promoter Score (NPS) and American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI)

For customer-centered banks, customer satisfaction is both a goal and a marketing tool. Banks need to be especially concerned with their customer satisfaction level today because with the development of social media and online environments, the experience of a client with a bank, a product or service can propagate much faster, spreading both good and bad word of mouth to the rest of the world. This article explains the two international measurements' techniques for tracking the customers’ overall satisfaction on repurchasing intention, likelihood or willingness to recommend the bank to others as well as specific attributes or benefits perceptions likely to be related to customer satisfaction. Those methods are Net Promoter Score (NPS) and American Customer Service Index (ACSI). Global CSI enables organizations throughout the world to license ACSI’s powerful, scientific methodology to create customer satisfaction indexes for their own national economies and to benchmark with other indexes adopting the ACSI methodology. Research has shown a strong and consistent association between customer satisfaction, as measured by NPS and ACSI and banks’ financial performance in terms of ROI, sales, long-term value. Results from the critical comparison indicate that both NPS and ACSI indexes do not fully account for ex-customers or those who were never customers. The challenge now for banks is to deliver superior services, to exceed the customers’ expectations, trying to offer more than just a good quality product or service, but trying to figure out what the customer needs in the future as well. This is also the case for Romanian Retail Banking System as it resulted from the research conducted on the local market, due to the fact that monitoring and continuous improvement of customer service become nowadays a strategic objective.