Service Quality: A Case Study of a Bank

Abstract

Today's marketing environment is characterized by increased competition, uncertain economic conditions, and shifts in global trading relationships. The pressure to understand market conditions and customer requirements is growing to the point where organizations will be compelled to exceed, rather than simply meet, customer expectations. In adapting to this pressure, organizations are looking to service initiatives as a way to create or sustain competitive advantages. Measuring customer satisfaction is, therefore, critical to the process of serving the customer and responding faster and better than the competition.The objective of this article is to address the importance of improving service quality in the banking industry. A questionnaire was developed to identify underlying dimensions of bank quality and to assess consumers' perceptions of the importance of each of these dimensions. Two large banks were selected, with five branches among them. Service quality questionnaires were sent to 800 customers; the overall response rate was 59 percent. A nondifference score of SERVQUAL was used to assess the dimensions of service quality. The results of the service quality analysis show that reliability and responsiveness are the two most critical dimensions of service quality, and they are directly related to overall service quality.