Q4 2024 Australian Banks Call Centre Rankings
Melbourne, Australia – February 10, 2025
The Australian Customer Experience Professionals Association (ACXPA) has released its latest Q4 2024 Banking Call Centre Rankings, evaluating how well Australian banks handle new business calls for home loans and credit cards.
The results highlight Hume Bank as the top-performing bank, achieving an Overall CX Score of 67.5%, while ING ranked last for the third consecutive quarter with 20.4%, continuing to struggle with customer service accessibility.
The banking sector’s CX performance improved significantly, with an average sector-wide score of 51.5%, marking its highest level to date but still poor compared to other business sectors and well below industry best-practice.
🏆 Q4 2024 Banking Call Centre Rankings – Overall CX Performance
📊 Top 3 Banks for Overall Customer Experience (CX)
1️⃣ Hume Bank – 67.5% Overall CX Score – Strongest performance across key service KPIs.
2️⃣ Bank Australia – 61.7% – High accessibility and efficient call handling.
3️⃣ NAB – 59.3% – Best-performing Tier 1 bank but still behind smaller competitors.
📉 Lowest-Ranked Bank
❌ ING – 20.4% Overall CX Score – Ranked last for the third consecutive quarter, with significant challenges in handling new customer inquiries
🔑 Performance Breakdown by Key Metrics
The Overall CX Score is calculated using five key service metrics, providing deeper insights into banking customer experience performance:
1️⃣ Overall CX Score – Sector Trends
• The banking sector-wide CX ranking rose to 51.5%, up +12.9% from Q3 2024, its best-ever improvement.
• Hume Bank topped the sector with 67.5%, demonstrating strong call handling and accessibility.
• ING’s 20.4% score places it last for three consecutive quarters, raising concerns about service delivery for potential new customers.
2️⃣ Accessibility – Ease of Reaching a Live Agent
• Hume Bank achieved an 86.5% accessibility rating, the highest recorded score to date.
• ING scored just 15.9%, making it the hardest bank to reach a live agent by phone, primarily as a result of long wait times.
• CBA had the most menu layers on their IVR, requiring customers to navigate through 4.2 layers of options prior to being placed into the queue.
3️⃣ Agent Mastery – Skill of the Agent and Customer Engagement
• Hume Bank led with 64.2%, the highest Agent Mastery score for the quarter.
• Commonwealth Bank had the lowest Agent Mastery score at 43.4%, indicating a need for improved agent training and communication skills.
• Agent empathy scores declined for the 5th straight quarter.
4️⃣ Calls Answered – Customer Service Efficiency
• Calls Answered rate remains the lowest across industries – 16.0% of calls were not answered within 10 minutes resulting in direct lost opportunties for the banks.
• Bank Australia answered 100% of calls, making it the only bank to achieve this milestone.
• Bendigo Bank followed with 88.9%, a significant improvement from the compariable period in Q4 2023 of just 33.3% .
• ING recorded the lowest Calls Answered rate at 44.4%, meaning more than half (55.6%) of customers seeking a home loan or credit card were unable to speak to a representative within 10 minutes.
5️⃣ Average Wait Time – Customer Queue Times
• Fastest Average Wait Time: Great Southern Bank – 0:23 minutes.
• Best Tier One Bank: Westpac – 1:12 minutes.
• Longest Average Wait Time: ING – 6:30 minutes, despite improving from 6:44 minutes in Q4 2024. ING have had the longest average wait times of banks for three consecutive quarters.
📊 Industry-Wide Insights – Are Banks Improving?
• The banking sector’s overall CX performance increased by +12.9% from Q3 2024, reaching 51.5%, a record high for the banking sector driven largely by improvements in accessibility.
• Despite improvements, the banking sector ranked 5th out of 6 industries measured for Agent Mastery, indicating a significant gap compared to best-practice customer experiences.
• Many banks are still struggling to meet service expectations, with ING’s low call answer rate (44.4%) underscoring critical service gaps.
📢 ACXPA CEO: “Banks Must Prioritise New Customer Engagement”
ACXPA CEO Justin Tippett emphasised the importance of improving call centre performance for new business enquiries:
“Banks invest heavily in acquiring new customers, but these rankings show that some are struggling to handle even basic inquiries about home loans and credit cards.
First impressions are critical—if a potential customer faces long wait times or struggles to get through, they’re likely to take their business elsewhere. Customers expect efficient service, and those banks that continue to fall behind risk losing business to competitors who prioritise accessibility and responsiveness.”
📥 Access the Full Report
The public version of the Q4 2024 Banking Call Centre Rankings is now available:
📊 View the report here: https://acxpa.com.au/australian-banks-q4-2024/
🔒 ACXPA Subscribers and members receive exclusive access to deeper insights, extended trend analysis, and additional CX performance breakdowns.
About ACXPA
The Australian Customer Experience Professionals Association (ACXPA) is the leading independent association dedicated to supporting Customer Experience (CX) and Contact Centre professionals across Australia.
ACXPA provides industry benchmarking, education, networking, and advocacy, helping businesses improve customer service outcomes. Through its live training courses, exclusive industry insights, and best practice resources, ACXPA equips organisations with the tools to deliver world-class customer experiences.
Learn more about ACXPA: https://acxpa.com.au/about-acxpa/
Media Contact:
Justin Tippett, ACXPA CEO
Tel: 0418 396 691
Media Resources (logo, pictures etc): https://acxpa.com.au/media-kit/
