Abstract
M.Com. (Business Management)
Over the years, the competitive banking market had forced banks to be innovative in
their products. However, regardless of how innovative banking products were, ‘service’
remained the backbone of banking products. With increasing access to information and
alternative products, banking customers had more choices as to where to do business,
based on the level of service they receive. They expected an exceptional delivery of
customer service and were less tolerant of bad service. Customers usually compared
the service they 'experienced' to the service they 'expected' when walking into a bank.
When the two did not match, a gap arose.
This study was undertaken to determine whether customers of a ‘home loan’ division of
a South African bank perceived the bank’s service quality to be different to what they
expected. It also sought to establish if there was a difference in how customers, in
different demographics, evaluate the bank’s service quality.
An online survey was used to gather information from banking customers on their
judgment of the bank’s service quality, after which statistical tests were done to analyze
the data.
The study revealed that a gap indeed exists between the service quality customers
expected and the service quality they actually received from the bank. Customers
reported a dissatisfaction of the bank’s service quality with regards to their provision of
reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy in their service delivery.
With regards to the evaluation of the bank’s service quality of customers in different
demographics, it was discovered that the 40-59 customer age group received the most
empathy in service encounters with the bank, customers using property insurance and
repayment related services perceived the bank’s service quality across all dimensions
to be positive. Lastly, a positive correlation between the number of years customers
have been with the bank and their perceptions of the bank’s provision of empathy was
established.