The Society has undertaken its own customer satisfaction research for several years, but this concentrates on new customers – to understand their experiences of the account opening process – and customers closing accounts – to understand what has prompted them to “leave” the Society. However, no satisfaction work is undertaken with existing customers and thus Explain was commissioned to launch a regular programme of customer satisfaction research to generate response volumes which are statistically robust.

Explain carry out 1,100 CATI interviews with both new and existing customers of Newcastle Building Society on a 6 monthly basis.  As well as being split by new and existing customer, data is also split by product type, namely savings, mortgage and regulated. This sample structure continues to track new customers but puts a greater emphasis on existing customers and covers satisfaction levels, marketing materials, advocacy and channel preference and experiences.

To date, two phases of customer satisfaction research have been carried out for Newcastle Building Society to enable insight to be gathered to inform changes and improvements moving forward.  Similar research will be carried out phase on phase to allow tracking over time, although our approach remains flexible, allowing changes to be made as company needs and structures change.