Commerce Bank Tops First Net Promoter Financial Services Industry Research; Satmetrix Reveals the Best and the Worst of the Banking Community

Business Wire, May 9, 2006

FOSTER CITY, Calif. -- Satmetrix Systems, Inc., the leading enterprise customer experience management (CEM) company and co-developer of the Net Promoter(R) Score, today revealed the findings of the "Net Promoter Industry Report 2006: Financial Services(C)" which has identified the best and the worst Net Promoter rankings of the consumer banking industry.

Commerce Bank topped the inaugural report, with a Net Promoter Score of 54%.

A Net Promoter Score provides a company with a benchmark by which to measure customer loyalty, and is based on real customer feedback data. The research was conducted and validated by Satmetrix and reveals the Net Promoter Scores of the top 27 US consumer banking organizations.

The Net Promoter Score is a metric, created by loyalty expert Fred Reichheld of Bain & Co. and Satmetrix, to measure customer experience and profitable growth, using a simple and radical question: How likely is it that you would recommend us to a friend or colleague? It allows companies to track promoters (customers who have a favorable view of doing business with the company and who will actively promote it) and detractors (customers who have a negative view and will tell colleagues, encouraging potential customers to take their business elsewhere) and produces the single most reliable indicator of a company's ability to grow by measuring an organization's performance in its customers' eyes.

Among the financial institutions studied, the report states that Commerce Bank has the highest Net Promoter Score of all companies surveyed. Commerce Bank's detractors equal 10 percent, passives equal 26 percent, and promoters equal 64 percent. The company with the lowest Net Promoter Score within this report has half the percentage of promoters as Commerce Bank, and five times the number of detractors.

Findings from this report indicate there are key drivers of a customer's recommendation that are consistent across the industry. Commerce Bank scored very well in these areas with their customers. The company with the lowest Net Promoter rating scored low in all four areas. Drivers with the biggest impact on a customer's likelihood to recommend the product or service to a friend or colleague were:

--Overall product

--Overall value (in comparison to competitive products, the company's fees and charges are fair)

--Company reputation

--Customer service and support

"This is the first published glimpse into the financial services industry and their Net Promoter Scores," said Dr. Laura Brooks, vice president of research and business consulting at Satmetrix Systems, Inc. "The variation in distributions of detractors, passives, and promoters suggest that the profiled companies will differ in terms of which follow-up strategies they need to deploy to maximize the potential for increased loyalty and revenue growth for them."

The results of the Net Promoter Industry Report 2006: Financial Services are based on responses from customers regarding their experiences with their financial services provider. An email invitation explains the purpose of the survey, offers an incentive to participating, and provides a link that allows individuals to click through to the Satmetrix survey site. All respondents are familiar with the products and services that are the subject of the survey, having purchased them as a personal consumer. Company names are standardized to capture accurate ratings for each rated company. The study was fielded during the first half of 2005.

The full report can be purchased online: http://www.netpromoter.com.

About Net Promoter(R)

Net Promoter is more than a metric to measure customer experience and profitable growth -- Net Promoter is a discipline by which companies profitably grow by focusing on their customers.

Widely adopted, it is co-developed with Fred Reichheld, Director Emeritus of Bain & Company and published in Harvard Business Review. Many leading companies have adopted Net Promoter as a standard. Further independent studies of Net Promoter, such as the one recently released by researchers at the Enterprise London School of Economics, have proven the financial impact of Net Promoter. Satmetrix continues to develop and refine Net Promoter best practices for the Net Promoter community. For more information, visit http://www.netpromoter.com/.> About Satmetrix Systems

Satmetrix Systems, Inc., headquartered in Foster City, Calif., is the leading enterprise customer experience management (CEM) company. Satmetrix' software delivers continuous customer experience feedback and insights to drive actions from all employees that vastly improve customer loyalty and financial performance. Satmetrix Systems also provides industry thought leadership; it developed the Net Promoter(R) metric with Fred Reichheld, Bain Fellow and director emeritus. For more information about Satmetrix Systems, please call 650-227-8300 or visit http://www.satmetrix.com.

The following are trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc.: Satmetrix, Satmetrix Systems. Net Promoter is a registered trademark of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company and Fred Reichheld.