“Likeable Enough”

Love this news: USAA reports the financial services industry’s reputation has “recovered considerably” from its recent low point in 2009, but it still falls far below other industries many people love to hate, including energy and telecommunications. Some financial firms escape the downbeat industry assessment, according to the 16th annual Harris Poll Reputation Quotient® (RQ) study.

According to Harris, 35% of the general public say the financial services industry in general has a positive reputation, up from 11% six years ago. But only the government and tobacco sectors place lower in the survey, with just 15% of the general public saying each has a positive reputation.

In comparison, a greater percentage of the general public give positive reputation ratings to other industries, including:

• 45% for energy • 46% for automotive • 53% for telecom • 54% for manufacturing • 60% for consumer products • 77% for technology

“Financial services’ poor reputation among roughly two-thirds of Americans should be a strong call to action. Our research shows that people clearly believe reputation matters and act on that belief,” a company source stated. “More than half of the general public actively seeks out information about companies they hear about or do business with, and 36% have decided against doing business with a company because of something they learned about its conduct.”

For the RQ study, Harris Poll annually surveys the general public to establish the most visible companies and then ranks them according to their corporate reputations from excellent to very poor, with none falling into the very poor range based on this year’s results. Harris Poll expanded the list this year from 60 to 100 companies. In addition to the more detailed company rankings, Harris Poll also asks whether specific industries have a positive or negative reputation.

Compared to the financial services industry overall, the reputations of the individual financial companies among the 100 most visible companies range widely from very good (scores of 75 to 79) to poor (scores of 50 to 64). Twelve financial firms make this year’s list of the 100 most visible companies, with USAA topping the group with a very good reputation rating of 78.22 and ranking 22 out of the 100 most visible companies overall. Insurance companies in general demonstrate stronger reputation than banks:

Citigroup and Bank of America have shown the greatest reputation improvement among financial companies in recent years, although both still fall into the poor reputation range in this year’s study. Citigroup’s 2015 score has increased almost 12 points from 2010 while Bank of America’s reputation has risen nearly 11 points since 2012.

“Financial firms have a clear choice now: Prioritize building their reputations and telling their stories, or let others continue to fill that void and remain lumped together with the rest of the industry,” the report concludes.

A complete ranking of the RQ’s 100 most visible companies can be found in the 16th Annual RQ Summary Report.