NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - Sep 17, 2013) - The Luxury Institute's new survey asked wealthy U.S. clients with a minimum household income of $250,000 to rate multiple aspects of their primary bank from a list of national and regional banks.

Evaluations of convenience, staff, company principles, and products and services yield a composite Banking Customer Experience Index of 1-10. Wells Fargo stands out with the highest composite score and also leads in each of the four sub-indices.

Smaller banks beat out Bank of America and Chase for having knowledgeable, trustworthy and respectful staff. Bank of America earns the lowest overall score but still holds the biggest market share of high-income clients. Chase consistently ranks between Bank of America and Wells Fargo and has the second largest market share of all rated consumer banks.

Despite shortcomings of bigger banks, Bank of America, Chase, Wells Fargo and Citi Bank customers are far more likely (45% vs. 27%) to open a new account with their existing bank as compared to current customers of smaller banks. 

"There is an opportunity for big banks to bridge the customer experience gap between themselves and their smaller competitors by focusing on developing a unique Customer Culture to deliver value for all segments of customers, and especially the top customers who deliver most of the profits," says Luxury Institute CEO Milton Pedraza.

About Luxury Institute (www.LuxuryInstitute.com)
The Luxury Institute is the objective and independent global voice of the high net-worth consumer. The Institute conducts extensive and actionable research with wealthy consumers about their behaviors and attitudes on customer experience best practices. In addition, we work closely with top-tier luxury brands to successfully transform their organizational cultures into more profitable customer-centric enterprises. Our Luxury CRM Culture consulting process leverages our fact-based research and enables luxury brands to dramatically Outbehave as well as Outperform their competition. The Luxury Institute also operates LuxuryBoard.com, a membership-based online research portal, and the Luxury CRM Association, a membership organization dedicated to building customer-centric luxury enterprises.