The research was conducted at the end of 2018 by Dive, one of the leading customer service development and evaluation businesses in Central and Eastern Europe. As part of the survey, 170 “secret shopper” visits were made to different branches of the banks involved. During these visits, the secret shoppers evaluated branch environment, employee appearance, professional knowledge, communication skills the ability to offer the client the most suitable service, and other criteria, using a unified methodology and identical parameters.
The Dive survey revealed that, among the three Baltic states, Lithuania’s banks have the strongest customer service, with an average result of 89.1% out of a maximum of 100% (with their total score improving by 1.4% over the year). Latvian banks have the second-best quality customer service in the Baltics, with a result of 84.2%, which has decreased by 3.5% since last year. The lowest-quality customer service was seen in Estonian banks, with 81.0% (a 2.3% reduction).
Citadele’s 2018 customer service rating in Latvia was 92.4% out of 100, which is the highest result among those banks included in the research. Citadele Bank’s customer service was recognised as the best in Latvia for the fourth time - it previously received this ranking in 2014, 2016 and 2017.
The banks evaluated in Latvia received the following scores: Luminor (90.00%), SEB bank (85.7%), Swedbank (79.8%) and Norvik (73.2%).
For several years in a row, banks in the Baltic states received their highest results in survey criteria such as branch environment, employee appearance and employee communication skills. Secret shoppers stated that they were greeted with a genuine smile and politeness, and they rated employees’ product knowledge highly. At the same time, they expect more engagement from the Baltic banks, offering products for the specific needs of the client and alternative solutions.
In Latvia, the survey was conducted in bank branches in ten cities: Riga, Daugavpils, Liepaja, Ventspils, Rezekne, Ogre, Jelgava, Valmiera, Cesis and Jurmala. Research was also performed in five Lithuanian and three Estonian cities.
Dive TOP3 is a customer service quality comparison tool which is also used in other industries in the Baltics and Poland.
Dive Group is one of the leading customer service development businesses in Central and Eastern Europe with many years’ experience. DIVE helps its clients to improve customer service, thus helping them to achieve higher financial and quality ratings. Using the secret shopper method, DIVE rates customer service quality mainly in the banking, telecommunications, transport and retail industries, as well as in the public sector. Surveys are always performed using the secret shopper method. Secret shoppers use a standardised form in which, in addition to answering the questions, shoppers submit expanded comments to support their answers. For each survey, an average of 10 leading businesses in the industry are chosen, and each is tested 10 times.