Customer satisfaction with financial advisors and online financial investment firms rose slightly overall since last year, according to a new survey.
Satisfaction with financial advisors is up 1.3% and, with a score of 78, is on par with customer satisfaction with banks as well as with online investment providers, according to a survey of 15,120 financial services customers, chosen at random and contacted via email from Oct. 5, 2020, to Sept. 30, 2021, by the American Customer Satisfaction Index. Credit unions was the only area in the survey where customer satisfaction dropped, by around 1.3%, ACSI says.
Among financial advisors, Fidelity scored 81, which was 3% higher than last year, followed by Charles Schwab at 80, and Wells Fargo, at 79, according to the survey. Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, while each rising 1%, lagged behind, with a score of 78, ACSI says.
That was followed by what ACSI calls "the group of smaller advisors." which collectively dropped 3% in customer satisfaction to a score of 77, which was on par with UBS, according to the report. And what ACSI calls "the group of independent advisors" rose 1% to a score of 76, which was equal to Raymond James' score. LPL Financial came in last among financial advisors, with a score of 75, despite rising 1%, ACSI says.
Among online investment providers, Vanguard took the lead, with a score of 80, followed by Fidelity, with 79, according to the report.
"The group of smaller investment firms," as ACSI calls them, scored 77, the same as Edward Jones. Schwab, meanwhile, saw customer satisfaction with its online investment services drop 4% to 76, which was the same score awarded to E*Trade, according to the report. Merrill Edge came in at 75, with customer satisfaction unchanged since last year, ACSI says.
And at the bottom of the online investment provider category, with a customer satisfaction score of 71, is the zero-commission brokerage Robinhood Financial, according to the report.
Robinhood has added millions of users over the past two years but has been in the media spotlight and in regulators' crosshairs as a result of various outages, data breaches and concerns about its methods.
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