There is a wide gap between how well banks, investment firms, and health insurers align their brand promises with customer experiences, according to Forrester’s inaugural Total Experience Score rankings for financial services firms in Singapore.
Tom Mouhsian, principal analyst at Forrester, explained: “Total experience reflects the cumulative impact of every interaction across the customer lifecycle and is the most holistic measure of whether a brand is truly able to follow through on its promises, earn trust, and thus ensure sustainable growth and competitiveness.”
Total Experience Score
The Total Experience Score combines findings from Forrester’s Brand Experience Index (BX Index) and its Customer Experience Index (CX Index) to generate a composite score that measures the perceptions that both noncustomers and customers form based on their cumulative interactions with a brand.
Banks showed the weakest alignment between brand promise and customer experience according to the evaluation of six banks (Citibank, DBS, HSBC, OCBC, Standard Chartered, and United Overseas Bank (UOB)).
Among the five firms assessed — Citibank, DBS, HSBC, OCBC, and UOB — HSBC led with the highest Total Experience Score, driven by strong BX and CX ratings from affluent customers.
The insurance sector suffers from a growing imbalance between customer and noncustomer perceptions. Of the eight insurers evaluated — AIA, FWD, Great Eastern, HSBC Life, Income Insurance, Prudential, Raffles Health Insurance (RHI), and Singlife — RHI led across all metrics, due to its integrated healthcare ecosystem and high trust ratings.
“Singapore’s financial services firms must rethink how they deliver value across the entire customer lifecycle, before and after the relationship starts,” said Mouhsian. “The Total Experience Score reveals that winning new customers and retaining existing ones requires more than just good branding; it demands consistent, emotionally resonant experiences.
