"High five" for excellent customer service goes to RBC Direct Investing

Wins Dalbar's annual Direct Brokerage Service Award for fifth straight year

TORONTO, Jan. 18, 2012 /CNW/ - For the fifth year in a row, RBC Direct Investing ranked as the number one online brokerage for customer service in Canada, according to the annual ratings just released by Dalbar Inc.

Dalbar named RBC Direct Investing as the winner of its 2011 Direct Brokerage Service Award, Dalbar's highest form of recognition for service excellence. RBC Direct Investing has been first in the annual Dalbar rankings since 2007 and for the past 17 consecutive quarters.

"This achievement clearly distinguishes the RBC team as the industry leader in service quality," noted Michelle Slute, director of Client Relations with Dalbar Inc. "This recognition reflects the unwavering commitment that RBC has made to delivering excellent service to its clients. Achieving this distinction consistently over the past five years puts RBC Direct Investing in a league of its own."

RBC Direct Investing ranked first in both the phone quality and e-mail categories for both the quarter and the year, as well as first for the year in all four phone sub-categories - accommodation of the representative, professionalism, sales effectiveness and expertise of the representative - to achieve a 75.8 rating overall, compared to the 69.15 industry average.

"Our entire team remains dedicated to extending our clients the very best service in Canada," said Jason Storsley, president and CEO of RBC Direct Investing. "This past year, we raised the bar for client service with the introduction of Rep-Assist and we intend to continue to innovate and provide our clients with an excellent online investing experience - one that gives them confidence to build the financial future they want to achieve."

Rep-Assist, an industry-leading service for self-directed investors, enables an online investor to phone an RBC Direct Investing representative and "screen share", to review resources and tools available on the RBC Direct Investing website.

About RBC Direct Investing (www.rbcdirectinvesting.com)
One of Canada's leading online brokerages, RBC Direct Investing is a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Bank of Canada. RBC Direct Investing provides innovative tools and resources for investors who prefer to manage all or a portion of their investment portfolio. Clients have online access to their investments 24/7 and can choose from a broad range of investment products including stocks, bonds, exchange-traded funds, GICs, and thousands of mutual funds. Online Practice Accounts and Rep-Assist screen sharing, together with comprehensive learning resources, help give new online investors the confidence they need to get started. For new as well as seasoned investors who wish to speak to someone directly, RBC Direct Investing has an award winning team of investment services representatives available to respond to clients' customer service, account and trading inquiries. RBC Direct Investing is a member of The Canadian Investor Protection Fund.

About Dalbar Inc.
As the world's premier financial services strategy and operations research firm, Dalbar Inc. helps leading enterprises develop, build, and operate strong businesses that deliver sustained shareholder value growth. Dalbar's proprietary business design techniques, combined with its specialized industry knowledge and behavioural research expertise, enable companies to anticipate changes in customer priorities and the competitive environment, and then design their businesses and improve operations to seize opportunities created by those changes. The firm serves clients in the Americas and Europe.

Kathy Bevan, RBC Corporate Communications, [phone]
Caitlin Holwell, RBC Media Relations, [phone]
Michelle Slute, Client Relations, Dalbar Inc., [phone] ext. 227