Bank of America least loved in places where it’s best known

Bank of America ranked worst among its peers in retail customer satisfaction in states where it has the most branches, California and Florida, according to an annual survey by J.D. Power.

As consumer sentiment toward the industry improved, the Charlotte bank fell further behind competitors, according to the survey released Thursday. The second-biggest U.S. lender ranked last in four of 11 regions this year, including the Northwest and Southeast, compared with two in 2014.

Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan, 55, assumed more direct oversight of the firm’s consumer bank in August when former co-Chief Operating Officer David Darnell was appointed vice chairman. Moynihan made the retail bank’s president, Thong Nguyen, a direct report to the CEO after Darnell relinquished oversight of the division.

“Any bank that performs at the bottom of the rankings should use this as a wakeup call,” Jim Miller, J.D. Power’s senior director of banking, said in a phone interview. “It makes sense for banks to focus on areas where they have a large presence because that’s going to drive their overall success.”

Bank of America’s main deposit-taking subsidiary has 936 offices in California, or almost a fifth of its nationwide total, according to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. data. Florida is second with 603. While J.D. Power ranked 10 banks in those states, the number of firms evaluated in other regions varied.

“While we have become a simpler, more straightforward company, there is more we are doing to improve our customers’ experience,” Anne Pace, a spokeswoman for Bank of America, said in an e-mail.

Bank of America’s customer satisfaction was below the average for each region, failing to rank better than third- worst, which is how it fared in Texas, the second-most populous state after California. Citigroup Inc., based in New York, was second-worst in California, Florida and Texas.

JPMorgan Chase & Co., the biggest U.S. bank, was ranked highest in Florida and never scored below the industry average. J.D. Power measured satisfaction in categories including problem resolution, products and fees and surveyed more than 80,000 bank customers.

Bank of America’s consumer and business division is its largest by revenue and profit, earning $7.1 billion last year, a 6.8 percent improvement from 2013.

This story was originally published April 30, 2015 at 4:45 PM with the headline "Bank of America least loved in places where it’s best known."