Royal Bank of Canada, Fidelity and Edward Jones are the top ranked full service financial firms for customer satisfaction, according to a study by J.D. Power released Thursday.

The survey also showed that full-service firms on average reached the highest customer satisfaction levels since the survey was launched 18 years ago.

J.D. Power ranks full-service financial firms on a 1,000-point scale that includes the service provided by financial advisors, the handling of account information, investment performance, firm interactions, product offerings, commissions and fees, information resources and problem resolution. Royal Bank of Canada received a ranking of 873, Fidelity received 865 and Edward Jones 860. A total of 21 firms were ranked. Advisory firms as a whole received an average ranking of 850, an increase of 15 points from 2018.

The challenge now, according to J.D. Power, will be to maintain that high ranking in customer relationships as the market goes through the coronavirus upheaval since periods of extreme market volatility have historically been a drag on investor satisfaction.

“Wealth managers are seeing increasing client satisfaction scores, but they’ve also been helped by a strong stock market,” Mike Foy, senior director of wealth intelligence at J.D. Power, said in a statement. “Obviously, the market performance side of the equation has changed significantly due to coronavirus. Our research shows that brands that have developed high-trust relationships with clients will not only be able to retain higher loyalty through more difficult times but will also be significantly less likely to see clients decrease investment as a result of disappointing performance.”

Digital contact is now more important than ever, J.D. Power said. Financial advisors who communicate with clients frequently digitally are 50% more likely to see increased investment from clients when compared to having no digital contact. The survey was based on input from 4,532 investors.

In addition, brands that have clients’ trust enjoy higher satisfaction, loyalty and greater referrals from clients even when problems or difficult markets inevitably arrive. Key drivers of brand trust include taking responsibility for mistakes and resolving them effectively, providing useful guidance, fulfilling service expectations and putting the interest of clients first, the study said.

Seventy-six percent of investors who rated their firm highly for their commitment to social causes said they definitely would recommend their investment firm to friends and family. Among investors who gave their firms a lower rating for considering social causes, only 32% said they definitely would recommend their firm, according to the study.

Having women advisors is important to firms because it is important to millennial investors, J.D. Power said. Millennial women are nearly 2.5 times more likely than older women to work with a female advisor than with a male advisor, suggesting such clients are seeking out female advisors to a degree that previous generations of women did not.

“Since only 15% to 20% of all financial advisors are women, the study underscores the importance of bringing more female advisor talent into the industry to meet this growing need. Firms that become known as organizations where females can thrive as advisors will have a big competitive advantage in the future,” J.D. Power said. The Bureau of Labor Statistics sets the percentage at 33%.