(Boston, MA. – January 12th, 2010) Today DALBAR released the 2009 winners of its annual Service Awards. For twenty years, DALBAR has conducted rigorous testing of service delivery and, each year, identified those mutual fund, broker/dealer, annuity, life insurance and retirement plan providers that are able to deliver industry-leading service to their customers.
The winners of this year’s award have emerged from an increasingly competitive field and represent the service leaders within the financial services industry committed to delivering the highest tier of service to their customers.
A win in 2009 marks the eighteenth award for Putnam Investments and the fourteenth for The Hartford. Evergreen Investments, now a fully owned subsidiary of Wachovia Bank, a Wells Fargo Company, is also an industry service leader with 12 consecutive years of award winning experience.
BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, New York Life Bank and B/D Annuity Svc Center and Transamerica Funds have also been very consistent in providing excellent service by each earning the DALBAR Service Award for the tenth time.
Other firms that achieved excellence in service include: AEGON/Transamerica, Allstate Insurance Company, Ameriprise Financial Services, Inc., Genworth Financial, The Guardian Insurance & Annuity Company, Inc., The Hartford Life Annuities, The Hartford Mutual Funds, John Hancock Annuities, John Hancock Signature Services, JPMorgan Funds, Lord, Abbett & Co., New York Life Insurance, New York Life Investment Management Service Company, Pacific Life, Primerica Shareholder Services, Prudential Financial, Prudential Retirement, RS Investments, SunAmerica Annuity and Life Assurance Company, Sun Life Financial, and Transamerica Capital.
“Earning this award fully underscores the commitment of these companies to their customers, even when faced with new and different pressures as has been the case throughout 2009”, said Csilla von Csiky, Managing Director at DALBAR.
The awards are based on systematic testing of customer service throughout the year. DALBAR conducts thousands of tests to measure how financial companies respond to the needs for service from their customers. Companies that exceed a variety of industry benchmarks after one year of testing earn the DALBAR Service Award. The following table provides a list of all firms that were recipients of DALBAR’s 2009 Service Award for each category.
NOTE: The numbers in parentheses represent the number of times the organization has earned the Service Award. The Mutual Fund, Annuity and Retirement Plan categories represent service provided to consumers of these products. The Financial Intermediary categories represent service provided to professionals who advise investors.
About DALBAR, Inc.
DALBAR, Inc., the nation’s leading financial services market research and consulting firm, is committed to raising the standards of excellence in the financial services industry. With offices in both the US and Canada, DALBAR develops standards for, and provides research, ratings, and rankings of intangible factors to the mutual fund, broker/dealer, life insurance, property and casualty, and managed account industries. They include investor behavior, customer satisfaction, service quality, communications, Internet services, and financial professional ratings. www.dalbar.com.
