Royal Bank of Canada has taken the top spot among the big banks in an influential annual survey of customer satisfaction, knocking off Toronto-Dominion Bank, which had held the honour for 10 consecutive years.

According to the J.D. Power 2016 Canadian Retail Banking Satisfaction Study, RBC ranked highest in overall customer satisfaction among the five biggest Canadian banks, with a score of 765 on a 1,000-point scale.

J.D. Power noted that RBC performed well in all seven categories measured in the survey, including product selection, online and mobile phone capabilities, level of personal service and the appearance of branches. How well the bank communicates with customers, provides financial advice and resolves problems rounded out the survey’s factors.

RBC narrowly beat second-place TD, which scored 761 in the survey, ending a decade-long winning streak that supplied a steady stream of glass trophies to an overstuffed display case in TD’s head office.

The annual award is important to the banks because it provides one measure of how well they are meeting customer expectations relative to their peers, giving executives an achievement to tout and a goal to reach for. A number of chief executive officers have vowed to improve their customer satisfaction scores, underscoring the importance of the surveys.

Last year, J.D. Power warned in its satisfaction study that banks were losing touch with their customers after the average score declined in 2015 compared with the previous year, largely because of customer reactions to rising fees and a perceived decline in bank services.

This year, though, J.D. Power highlighted the fact that the average satisfaction score jumped by 23 points, with all five banks showing notable improvements. Bank of Montreal led the gains, with its score rising 33 points from last year; RBC showed the second-best gain, of 27 points. Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce rose 22 points, Bank of Nova Scotia rose 16 points and TD rose 15 points.

“The improvements indicate that customers are becoming less sensitive to new pricing structures, which caused satisfaction to tumble in 2015,” Paul McAdam, senior director of banking services at J.D. Power, said in a statement. “The banks are doing a better job communicating with their customers, who now are seeing the value they are getting in return for higher fees.”

This year’s survey also showed that the banks are far more closely ranked than they were. Just 12 points separates first-place RBC from fifth-place Bank of Nova Scotia, down from a difference of 19 points in 2015, 28 points in 2014, 31 points in 2013 and 47 points in 2012.

This steady change over the past five surveys suggests that customers now perceive fewer differences among the big banks, especially as more people turn to their smartphones to do their banking.

J.D. Power said that 34 per cent of bank customers used mobile banking services in 2016, up from 27 per cent in 2015 and 20 per cent in 2014. It noted that customers who use mobile banking tend to report better satisfaction scores than customers who don’t, partly because they might not notice a shrinking branch network or show sensitivity to rising fees.