OREANDA-NEWS. February 25, 2014. A recent survey carried out in the Baltic States by the research company Dive Eesti OU indicated that there are just eight banks with exemplary service across all three Baltic States.

In Estonia, there is only one bank whose service was rated as excellent – Danske Bank, with a score of 90%. There are two banks with very good service in Latvia – Danske Bank (95.5%) and DNB (93%) and as many as five in Lithuania – Finasta (98%), Danske Bank (97%), DNB (95%), Nordea (94%) and Citadele (91%). Swedbank (84%) and BIGBANK (82%) in Estonia and Nordea (89%) in Latvia also made the top three.

Kerli Soosaar, CEO at Dive Eesti, said that the tendency of previous years has not changed and that the lead positions are still held by banks that have stood out for their excellent results in the past.

“Last year, Danske Bank swept the board in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, but this year the group had to relinquish first place in Lithuania to Finasta,” she said. “Swedbank has also made the top three in Estonia in the last three years. Nordea has often made the top three in different years and different countries, and DNB and SEB have done the same in Latvia and Lithuania on several occasions.”

The continuing trend in the national averages of the service level in the banking sector is that the average of all ratings is lowest in Estonia (81%). This year, Estonia is followed by Latvia on 82%, while test clients rate customer service highest in Lithuania, where the sector’s average is 85%.

However, it is interesting to note that service level by bank is most even in Estonia, ranging from 73-90%, whilst the same indicator in Latvia ranges from 58-95.5% and in Lithuania from 61-98%.

The highest recommendation index scores are also given in Lithuania, where the average score given to the bank that won the survey this year was very close to the maximum and the average score of banks was 8.3. Based on these scores, Estonia’s 7.7 narrowly beats Latvia’s 7.6.

All in all, it can be said that the best results in all three Baltic States were again achieved in the blocks concerning the general impression of branches, the appearance of service staff and their communication skills. However, the first two blocks provide a very small share of the total score and therefore have the least impact on it. The results are again weakest in blocks where the desire and skills of service staff to identify and define the needs of clients and to offer the best solutions according to needs and requests are rated. Opinions on making summaries of communication and ending contact are also weaker than average.

In the case of excellent service contact, service staff are open and proactive and their attitude makes clients feel that they really do want to provide them with the best solution. Other examples that deserve to be mentioned are the initiative of service staff to talk about other banking products without excessive sales, to invite clients to become the bank’s client and to praise their own bank without being derogatory towards their competitors.

The Dive Top3 survey, which compares the level of customer service in banks, was carried out from December 2013 to January 2014. Seven larger banks in Estonia, nine in Latvia and nine in Lithuania were covered by the survey. Six to ten visits were made to the branches of these banks located in cities. The total number of visits made in the Baltic States was 244. The Mystery Shopping method was used to carry out the survey, i.e. trained test clients rated the place on service in general as well as the entire service process by acting out a pre-determined situation. The questionnaire was divided into main service blocks, which in turn covered questions. Both objective and subjective aspects were rated, with only the answers given to objectives (i.e. fact-based questions) being considered in the calculation of the total score.

The purpose of subjective opinions and comments was to provide additional information to the banks and to give them input about how clients felt, what they expected and what disappointed them.

Dive regularly carries out comparative surveys of service sectors, rating the levels of different service sectors in each country separately as well as across the Baltic States. The purpose of the survey is to rate larger organisations, compare them to each other, identify the best ones, determine areas that need development in the sector and observe trends over time.