For those of you who are regular readers of the Sunday Star Times, you should have picked up on their 2009 banking awards back in early August and noticed that we didn't win anything. This struck me as odd.
Whilst I know we haven't offered the best rates for short dated term deposits for some time (here's what I've had to say on that subject) I do know that we have consistently offered the best rates for online On Call deposits.
I had a look into it a little further and I was right.
The award for Online Savings Account is presented on the basis of the account which gives the investor the greatest return for $2,000 invested for a specific six month period, and knowing that we had offered the best rates for the corresponding period I was certain the award was given to the wrong bank and to make matters worse the results showed us as coming 3rd overall.
I approached Canstar (formerly known as Cannex), the company who supplies the data to the Sunday Star Times which is used to determine the results for these awards, only to be told by Canstar that my findings were correct and that a mistake had been made, but they were not willing to do anything about it but would review their data collection processes in time for the 2010 awards (not a shining example of customer service or focus on integrity, but that's a subject for another day).
You can imagine my outrage.
We take great pride in winning awards. We see them, second to customer feedback, as a good indicator of how we are performing and if we are delivering on our promises. Plus, we all know the power of referrals and recommendations when it comes to making purchasing decisions, and here is a potential situation that could see people choosing bank accounts on the basis of false results.
At this point I'd like to thank Tim Hunter (Business Editor Sunday Star Times). Tim shared similar views as mine and was equally keen to see the situation corrected.
Finally business as usual was restored. Having won the award for Best Online Savings Account since we opened our “virtual doors” I can confirm that Tim published an article in yesterday's Sunday Star Times reaffirming our place at the top with the #1 Online Savings Account.
Congratulations to all RaboPlus customers – well done for once again making the right choice and joining the NZ's only specialist savings and investments bank.
Add comment
Trackbacks (0) Trackback url
Permalink
7 Comments