topic Re: Credit Card Customer Service Satisfaction in Credit in the News

Credit Card Lender Satisfaction

Aim_High — Mon, 14 Feb 2022 16:55:44 GMT

I looked this information up for another thread and decided to post the historical J.D. Power Credit Card Satisfaction Rankings (2013 - 2021.) My other thread was on Discover and how they've been neck-and-neck with American Express for the past ten years. (Discover claimed the #1 spot in 2019, 2018, 2016, 2015; tied with AMEX in 2014; and only lag AMEX by 1 point in 2020-2021.)

It's also interesting that the often-maligned Capital One bank is ranked #3 on the 2021 rankings. So maybe it's time to ask, "What's in your wallet?" Lol

It would be interesting to hear commentary from the community that either reinforces or contradicts these ratings.

With which lenders are you most happy?

Re: Credit Card Customer Service Satisfaction

FinStar — Mon, 14 Feb 2022 00:39:27 GMT

@Aim_High wrote:
I looked this information up for another thread and decided to post the historical J.D. Power Credit Card Satisfaction Rankings (2013 - 2021.) My other thread was on Discover and how they've been neck-and-neck with American Express for the past ten years. (Discover claimed the #1 spot in 2019, 2018, 2016, 2015; tied with AMEX in 2014; and only lag AMEX by 1 point in 2020-2021.)

It's also interesting that the often-maligned Capital One bank is ranked #3 on the 2021 rankings. So maybe it's time to ask, "What's in your wallet?" Lol

It would be interesting to hear commentary from the community that either reinforces or contradicts these ratings. Which card lenders are you most happy with in terms of Customer Service?

Unfortunately, the plethora of images you displayed do not provide an equitable look for CUs or other regional/midsized institutions (if we are discussing customer experiences overall for all lenders). Unless your intent or approach was simply to discuss the ones listed as the top 10 largest banks.

ETA - the title is also a bit misleading since none of the charts specifically state "Credit Card Customer Service Satisfaction", but rather being a Credit Card Satisfaction study based on a Customer Satisfaction Index Ranking. So, to me it goes beyond just "customer service". While the indices are not specific in the charts displayed, I would think this would also mean, overall card benefits, website/application experience, issue/resolution responsiveness, handling of fraud instances, accessibility, worldwide acceptance, etc.

Re: Credit Card Customer Service Satisfaction

AverageJoesCredit — Sun, 13 Feb 2022 22:48:38 GMT

I would highly object to the high level of satisfaction with Chase..... how else to explain 5/24 amongst myFicoers 😁

Re: Credit Card Customer Service Satisfaction

wasCB14 — Sun, 13 Feb 2022 23:23:52 GMT

@AverageJoesCredit wrote:
I would highly object to the high level of satisfaction with Chase..... how else to explain 5/24 amongst myFicoers 😁

A single score can tend to be misleading. I feel there are at least four things to consider:

1. Do some account types or customers get a different pool of CSRs?

2. How complicated is the problem to be solved?

3. Is the CSR competent to solve the problem?

4. Is the result one that the customer likes?

Discover CSRs are absolutely polite and efficient, but I also expect their average call is pretty simple. A lost card, a request for a lower APR, etc.

Amex Centurion and Platinum CSRs probably see more complicated problems.

Re: Credit Card Customer Service Satisfaction

805orbust — Mon, 14 Feb 2022 15:24:16 GMT

Amex customer service is glorious. I don't even have to look to know. They're probably the best customer service of most any product I use. That said so is Disco. As a matter of fact the only complaint I have is the low credit limit. (Yeah i know, first world problems) their website and app are the best also tbh.

Re: Credit Card Customer Service Satisfaction

Aim_High — Tue, 29 Mar 2022 19:25:51 GMT

@FinStar wrote:
@Aim_High wrote:
I looked this information up for another thread and decided to post the historical J.D. Power Credit Card Satisfaction Rankings (2013 - 2021.) My other thread was on Discover and how they've been neck-and-neck with American Express for the past ten years. (Discover claimed the #1 spot in 2019, 2018, 2016, 2015; tied with AMEX in 2014; and only lag AMEX by 1 point in 2020-2021.)

It's also interesting that the often-maligned Capital One bank is ranked #3 on the 2021 rankings. So maybe it's time to ask, "What's in your wallet?" Lol

It would be interesting to hear commentary from the community that either reinforces or contradicts these ratings. Which card lenders are you most happy with in terms of Customer Service?
Unfortunately, the plethora of images you displayed do not provide an equitable look for CUs or other regional/midsized institutions (if we are discussing customer experiences overall for all lenders). Unless your intent or approach was simply to discuss the ones listed as the top 10 largest banks.

ETA - the title is also a bit misleading since none of the charts specifically state "Credit Card Customer Service Satisfaction", but rather being a Credit Card Satisfaction study based on a Customer Satisfaction Index Ranking. So, to me it goes beyond just "customer service". While the indices are not specific in the charts displayed, I would think this would also mean, overall card benefits, website/application experience, issue/resolution responsiveness, handling of fraud instances, accessibility, worldwide acceptance, etc.

Those are great points and fair criticisms, @FinStar. I think I saw the survey and inaccurately assumed the focus was more on customer service satisfaction. I've altered the subject line to delete the emphasis on "customer service" and instead focus on "lender satisfaction" since that seems more the intent of the survey. I also deleted the specific reference to customer service in my original post. Per J.D. Power, while customer service is one aspect of the study, it's only one of six elements.

" ... The U.S. Credit Card Satisfaction Study, now in its 15th year, measures customer satisfaction with credit card issuers by examining six factors (in alphabetical order): Benefits & Services; Communication; Credit Card Terms; Interaction; Key Moments; and Rewards ..."

I found the historical data interesting as a student and hobbyist of credit. So the reason for the abundance of images was to provide anyone else in the community quick access to that historical data instead of having to look it all up separately. I thought others might find it helpful, especially for those considering overall satisfaction as an important component when considering a card or lender.

My intent was not to limit the discussion to these lenders but I thought it was a great starting point, especially in terms of either agreeing or disagreeing with their ratings. These ten lenders control in excess of 82% of the card market (Nielsen data 2018) so while this rating does exclude many other significant lenders, it covers the great majority of the market and most of our members have cards with at least one if not several of these lenders. However, of note, the press release alludes to separate ratings for mid-size issuers (and I would imagine there was a study on smaller ones also), but I was unable to find those surveys. (I imagine J.D. Power charges for the entire reports and data.) However, they did state that Goldman Sachs / Apple card had a score of 864 which would have bested any of the scores in the top-ten largest lenders by a wide margin. They also mentioned BB&T, Huntington, and PNC with scores of 817, which would have placed them around third place in a blended polling. Combined, I imagine these lenders cover at least 85% of the market.

Comments about satisfaction with any credit card lender are welcome.

Re: Credit Card Customer Service Satisfaction

Anonymalous — Thu, 17 Feb 2022 18:49:00 GMT

This press release has the mid-size rankings:

https://www.jdpower.com/sites/default/files/file/2021-08/2021095%20U.S.%20Credit%20Card_2.pdf

One interesting footnote is Navy Federal CU -- for technical reasons, they don't qualify for a ranking, but their score of 866 is higher than any other financial institution.

Re: Credit Card Customer Service Satisfaction

Anonymalous — Thu, 17 Feb 2022 21:33:46 GMT

Here's the full 2021 list, large and mid sized, ranked and unranked, converted to percentages (using the cumulative distribution function, i.e. grading on a curve). I also broke up the list by natural breakpoints (standard deviations). Credit One is about as bad as Navy Fed is good, which means Premier Bankcard is really terrible.

97% Navy Federal CU
97% Goldman Sachs
96% USAA

87% American Express
86% Discover

68% BB&T (now part of Truist)
68% Huntington
68% PNC
66% Capital One
62% Regions Bank
56% Chase
54% Bank of America
54% Citi

52% Fifth Third

Average

44% SunTrust (median, now part of Truist)
41% BMO Harris
39% Barclays
39% TD Bank
37% Wells Fargo
37% FNBO
34% Synchrony Bank
33% Citizens Bank
32% Merrick Bank

28% US Bank
25% BBVA
25% Key Bank
23% HSBC

2% Credit One Bank

0.4% Premier Bankcard

Re: Credit Card Customer Service Satisfaction

Crowhelm — Sat, 19 Feb 2022 03:46:25 GMT

@Anonymalous wrote:
This press release has the mid-size rankings:
https://www.jdpower.com/sites/default/files/file/2021-08/2021095%20U.S.%20Credit%20Card_2.pdf

One interesting footnote is Navy Federal CU -- for technical reasons, they don't qualify for a ranking, but their score of 866 is higher than any other financial institution.

And a credit union outperforms them all in each ranking. I rest my case :-)

Re: Credit Card Customer Service Satisfaction

sxa001 — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 23:02:06 GMT

I don't have a complicated credit card life, so pretty rare to have to be on the phone with any of my lenders, but I will concur that Disco and AMEX have been easy to work with when I have called.

Re: Credit Card Lender Satisfaction

MasonK — Sun, 06 Mar 2022 01:31:41 GMT

My interaction with AmEx on the one time I had to call them was awful- CSR was telling me that the hotel I booked through FHR was not on the FHR list, then put me on hold for 90 minutes before hanging up on me. I consider that to be a very bad one-off experience even though I have no other reference.

Discover, Chase, and CapitalOne, however, have all been great. Discover and CapOne have both had multiple fraud charges to the card limits and they took care of it in under five minutes with almost no hold time in the queue.

Re: Credit Card Lender Satisfaction

DONZI — Mon, 14 Mar 2022 06:42:48 GMT

@MasonK, do you recall if that call was direct to amex travel or routed there from the number on the back of the platinum?

There are limitations with all the representatives whether it be specific to product or service or technical which is understandable IMO. In particular, website issues or discrepancies like you mention, landed me with the digital assist team. The initial CSR did what they could and/or documented the problem to pass along.

Ironically there are things none has been able to really explain or fix. EG: where is the CLI button? Missing enrollment for the 'Premium Car Rental Status' benefit for the Platinum for Schwab.

I am not surprised however since the website problems are way out of the scope of anyone who is expected to talk with customers on the phone... aside from perhaps validating it has a problem. Overall I think CSR do what they can within their ability and try to escalate it without us needing to ask, hence the transfer to someone they understand has been trained more specifically for the issue at hand.

I may push for some sort of escalation past the digital assist team, just to see if it's possible. Some of the website problems I face are extremely counter productive.

I'd be inclined to consider your 90 minute wait time and dropped connection completely unintentional and perhaps simply a technical crack you had the unfortunate 'luck' of falling into.

I've called amex and spoken to card services, travel, digital assist and probably other reps and don't think I've ever waited beyond 5-10 minutes for a call transfer. If my wait got longish more often than not I'd have the original rep drop in and let me know they're there and sometimes offer to call me back when they have the xfer party on the line if call volume was really heavy or there was 'research' needed on their part.

I have noticed a difference in customer service between calling the number on the back of my BCE Vs the platinum, but I can understand that. Although I generally start a call with the platinum CSR phone number for any card now, I've never had any disgruntled feelings when using the number for the BCE or Gold card.

Discover has heard from me a few times, but that has been similar to the BCE, have always felt satisfied with the service. Once when I first got the discover, there was a somewhat strange feeling dealing with a fraud specialist. It was something about a question I had IIRC.. I've never reported or had any fraud with the card, but was transferred to them for something I can't remember anymore. Kind of felt like an inquisition for a brief time, but nothing else stuck in my memory about it since the ~10-12 months of that call.

Fifth Third I've called several times in the past and like Synovus the CSR for these institutions are notably more hamstrung in what they can do and confidently respond. Not bad service, just very different than the experience with Discover and American Express.

Re: Credit Card Lender Satisfaction

MasonK — Sat, 12 Mar 2022 19:15:41 GMT

@DONZI wrote:
@MasonK, do you recall if that call was direct to amex travel or routed there from the number on the back of the platinum?

There are limitations with all the representatives whether it be specific to product or service or technical which is understandable IMO. In particular, website issues or discrepancies like you mention I've encountered land be with the digital assist team after anyone before that tried to do what they can and/or document the problem to pass along.

Ironically there are things none has been able to really explain or fix. EG: where is the CLI button? Missing enrollment for the 'Premium Car Rental Status' benefit for the Platinum for Schwab.

I am not surprised however since the website problems are way out of the scope of anyone who is expected to talk with customers on the phone... aside from perhaps validating it has a problem. Overall I think CSR do what they can within their ability and try to escalate it without us needing to ask, hence the transfer to someone they understand has been trained more specifically for the issue at hand.

I may push for some sort of escalation past the digital assist team, just to see if it's possible. Some of the website problems I face are extremely counter productive.

I'd be inclined to consider your 90 minute wait time and dropped connection completely unintentional and perhaps simply a technical crack you had the unfortunate 'luck' of falling into.

I've called amex and spoken to card services, travel, digital assist and probably other reps and don't think I've ever waited beyond 5-10 minutes for a call transfer. If my wait got longish more often than not I'd have the original rep drop in and let me know they're there and sometimes offer to call me back when they have the xfer party on the line if call volume was really heavy or there was 'research' needed on their part.

I have noticed a difference in customer service between calling the number on the back of my BCE Vs the platinum, but I can understand that. Although I generally start a call with the platinum CSR phone number for any card now, I've never had any disgruntled feelings when using the number for the BCE or Gold card.

I honestly don't recall if I called the number on the card or the Concierge line. At the end of the day, it was an Amex Platinum Cardholders group that answered my question which was a lack of Platinum benefits even though I booked through the Amex portal. It was my first time using the portal to book a trip and I, as have many first-timers, learned that if you book flight+hotel, you don't get FHR/FHC benefits.

Like I said, I was not thrilled by the experience. However, I don't think my experience is the norm.

Re: Credit Card Lender Satisfaction

DONZI — Mon, 14 Mar 2022 07:21:10 GMT

@MasonK wrote:
Cardholders group that answered my question which was a lack of Platinum benefits even though I booked through the Amex portal. It was my first time using the portal to book a trip and I, as have many first-timers, learned that if you book flight+hotel, you don't get FHR/FHC benefits.

Like I said, I was not thrilled by the experience. However, I don't think my experience is the norm.

I see. Maybe the booking presentation changed since you booked.

My recent bookings, experimenting with the flight+hotels, gave me the impression the package savings were partly related to the lack of FHR or HC perks as the hotels are all listed with white background with no specific FHR/HC mentions anywhere.

I wasn't too concerned about it since I was initially trying to reduce the total cost, and the hotel I chose wasn't normally part of FHR or HC anyhow.

Later I decided to sift though the days individually for hotel booking and see what popped up.. In the end, I wound up finding a nice combination of FHR, HC and best rate bookings. Hotel hopping will be kind of neat since I'd never been to the area and there are a lot of great looking hotels.

Re: Credit Card Lender Satisfaction

MasonK — Mon, 14 Mar 2022 16:30:31 GMT

@DONZI wrote:
I see. Maybe the booking presentation changed since you booked.

My recent bookings, experimenting with the flight+hotels, gave me the impression the package savings were partly related to the lack of FHR or HC perks as the hotels are all listed with white background with no specific FHR/HC mentions anywhere.

I wasn't too concerned about it since I was initially trying to reduce the total cost, and the hotel I chose wasn't normally part of FHR or HC anyhow.

Later I decided to sift though the days individually for hotel booking and see what popped up.. In the end, I wound up finding a nice combination of FHR, HC and best rate bookings. Hotel hopping will be kind of neat since I'd never been to the area and there are a lot of great looking hotels.

Yes- the package savings are all back-ended through Priceline so you won't get the FHR/FHC/status boosts that you'd get for a normal portal booking for credits or direct-booking for status. Sometimes it's postive-value to book FHR/FHC, sometimes it's cheaper overall to book package, sometimes direct. It all depends on how much time we all want to spend in order to wring every ounce of benefits; that's why we call it The Game.

Re: Credit Card Lender Satisfaction

DONZI — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 21:13:31 GMT

It was definitely like a game for me this time around!

Spreadsheet, numerous travel and hotel sites open, reviews, etc. Normally I like to keep it simple but this will be my first time in Vegas and when I noticed the huge difference in price among days and taking into account the vast amenities at a lot of the places I decided to micro manage the lodging for the 8 nights.

At this point I have come out ahead Vs the flight+hotel route. The logistics of the ground transportation I've not ironed out yet, so that may change things. In all, I expect it's going to be great and rack up plenty of additional spending. It's kind of a bucket list trip since I'm not a gambler.

Re: Credit Card Lender Satisfaction

SoCalGardener — Thu, 17 Mar 2022 22:37:29 GMT

Great thread! Thanks for posting.

The graphics are eye-opening. I'm *shocked* that Cap1 ranks as high as it does--it should be no surprise to anyone who's read my posts that I'm not exactly a fan. But I'm not at all shocked that Discover and Amex do the 1-2 swap at the top. I love them both, and can't say enough about their customer service and the value of their respective cards. Cap1? Not so much...

Re: Credit Card Lender Satisfaction

Crowhelm — Fri, 18 Mar 2022 14:13:32 GMT

I think if credit unions would be in this mix there would be not one bank in the top five. Maybe not even top ten. Credit unions is the way to go for average folks like myself. Way better service and you are not treated like a number, you always feel like a part of the family.

Re: Credit Card Lender Satisfaction

805orbust — Sat, 19 Mar 2022 17:35:25 GMT

How about Chase? Amazing. And it seems their algorithms and computer systems are built to the same standards 🤣 TOTALLY agree with @SoCalGardener on Cap1, had I not been backended by Worlds Foremost (Cabelas) and Sync (WalMart) I would never have signed up with them.