AN ANALYTICAL STUDY OF COMMERCIAL BANKING SERVICES

& CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

(With special reference to S. B. I . Gorakhpur)
Alok Kumar Srivastava
1
Dr. P. chatterjee
2
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ABSTRACT
The banking industry like many other financial services industries is facing a rapidly changing
market, new technologies, economic uncertainties, fierce competition, and especially more
demanding customers; and the changing climate has presented an unprecedented set of
challenges. Customer service is one integral part of any facet of banking and it defines future of
any banking organization. In banking sector, the whole range of activity and generation of
income swivels around the customer. It is necessary to identify the key success factors in the
banking industry, in terms of customer satisfaction with the help of five dimensions of
SERVQUAL viz. keeping assurance, reliability, responsiveness, physical facilities and empathy,
keeping in view the increasing market size and intense competition.
This study aims to analyze customer satisfaction of commercial bank State Bank of India.
SERVQUAL scale was used to determine customer satisfaction. The findings revealed that
'Responsiveness' was the main dimension governing customer satisfaction of SBI.
Key Words: Customer satisfaction, SERVQUAL, assurance, reliability, responsiveness, physical
facilities and empathy, etc.
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I.0 INTRODUCTION
Business firms realize that marketing is a core element of management philosophy and key to its
success lies in focusing more and more on the customers. It is the customer who decides where
the firm is hedging. Thus, the main challenge before the marketers is to identify what would
appeal and convince the customer and ensure that customers need, want & demands are satisfied.
Today customer looks out value for money, therefore Marketers are trying to enhance the
concept or value through unique delivery methods. They realize that product services,
1
Research Scholor, Deen Dayal Upadhayay Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur.
2 Professor, SCM Lucknow.
characteristics, customers aspirations & perceptions and the availability of competing
alternatives can be used to check customer satisfaction.
All the services and facilities provided by the commercial banks play important role for
measuring the level of the customer satisfaction and quality of services. In this research,
researcher has tried to investigate the expectation and perception of the customer of State Bank
of India, who avail the services of commercial banks by using the services quality model. The
whole study is carried out using SERVQUAL on the basis of the five dimension viz., assurance,
reliability, responsiveness, physical facilities and empathy. Major focus of the study is
identifying the services quality gap between consumers expectation and perception for the
commercial banks in Gorakhpur.
EXPECTATION V/S PERCEPTION
II.0 DIMENSIONS OF SERVICES QUALITY
The dimensions of customer satisfaction of services quality was originally introduced by
Parasuramn A., Valerie Ziethaml and Leonard L. berry in 1995 in the arc of service quality.
SERVQUAL was developed based on the view of the customers assessment. This assessment
was conceptualized as a gap between customers expectations by way of SERVQUAL from a
class of services providers and their evaluation of the performance of a particulars service
provider. SERVQUAL are widely used in variety of studies that include public services, higher
education, hotel, banking, consulting, tourism, marketing, hospital and telecommunication
industry.
NOT UNDERSTAND THE
CUSTOMER EVALUATION
PROCESS & SATISFACTION
FOR SERVICES
CUSTOMER EXPECTATION
CUSTOMER GAP
CUSTOMER PERCEPTION
II.1 PHYSICAL FACILITIES
Physical facilities refers representing service physically. In it modern looking equipment
visually appealing physical facilities, goods and lucrative form of pamphlets/ proformas/
statements are involved. All these physical facilities are used by the customers to evaluate the
quality of service.
II.2 RELIABILITY
Reliability means delivering of promises. Reliability can be defined as the ability to perform
the promised services accurately and timely. Customers want to do business with these
consumers who keep their promises, especially promises about their core services.
II.3 RESPONSIVENESS
Responsiveness means willing to help the customers. Responsiveness can be defined as
employees willing to help the customers and giving the services promptly and within time. This
dimension emphasize on attentiveness and promptness in dealing with customers request,
question complains and problems.
II.4 ASSURANCE
Assurance means inspiring trust and confidence. Assurance can be defined as employees
knowledge of the firm if employees have capacity to inspire trust and confidence to the
customers. Customers want to do transaction if they feel safe.
II.5 EMPATHY
Empathy means treating individually. Empathy can be defined as the casing individualized
attention the firm provides its customers. Employees should understand the specific needs of
their customers.
III.0 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
Objective of this research project is confined to examine the role of customers in the assessment
of service quality in SBI. The study also attempts to know the customer
satisfaction/dissatisfaction which is directly related to expected and actual service quality
experienced in bank.
III.1 AREA OF STUDY
The study is based on primary and secondary data. Primary data has been calculated from
persons having account in SBI in Gorakhpur city by filling up well structured questionnaire and
through personal meeting with customer. Secondary data was collected from website of SBI
banks magazine and journals.
III.2 RESEARCH APPROACH
To collect primary data, Survey research approach was adopted for the project and for this
communication approach; personal interview of the respondent was conducted.
III.3 RESEARCH INSTRUMENT
For the collection of primary data, a properly structured questionnaire was used. The
questionnaire comprises both close ended and open ended questions, in case of close ended
questions Likert scales have been used.
III.4 SAMPLING PROCESS
It is not feasible to go for a population surveys due to this numerous customers and this scattered
location. Hence researchers had gone for intelligent sampling.
In this research, researcher surveyed 305 respondents who were having their account with SBI
banks in Gorakhpur city. In this research stratified and convenience sampling method has been
used for sampling procedures.
III.5 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
Due to time and cost factor only 305 customers were surveyed.
The study is limited to Gorakhpur city.
All the information furnished by the respondent was treated as correct.
IV.0 ANALYSIS & INTERPRETATION OF DATA
Table no 1 presents the overall satisfaction/dissatisfaction of the customers towards SBI,
Gorakhpur.
Table: 1: Customer Satisfaction/dissatisfaction
S.No. Satisfaction/dissatisfaction Respondents %
1 Satisfied with the transacting bank 83 27.22
2 Dissatisfied with the transacting bank 222 72.78
Total 305 100
The above table clearly indicates that most of the respondents (72.78%) were dissatisfied with
the services offered by their transacting bank and a few (27.22%) respondents only were satisfied
with the said banks services.
Table: 2: Service Quality assessment of satisfied customers
S.No. Services quality dimension Expected % Actual %
1 Physical facility 77.71 39.75
2 Reliability 80.72 48.19
3 Responsiveness 80.24 46.26
4 Assurance 77.34 51.32
5 Empathy 77.34 44.61
The above table despites that most of the respondents (80.72%) were satisfied with the services
offered by the bank viewed their expected service quality from an Excellent bank based on
reliability of banks staff. However, perception of actual service in the transacting bank was very
low (48.19%).
Similarly, the percentage of satisfied respondents who assessed other dimensions of expected
and actual service qualities were 80.24% and 46.26% towards responsiveness,77.71 and 39.75%
towards physical facilities, 77.34% and 51.32% towards assurance, 77.34% and 44.81% towards
empathy, respectively.
Table: 3: Services Quality assessment of dissatisfied customers
Sl. No. Services quality dimension Expected % Actual %
1 Physical facility 80.06 54.5
2 Reliability 84.23 63.66
3 Responsiveness 88.37 61.8
4 Assurance 85.40 64.05
5 Empathy 84.05 59.81
While most of the dissatisfied customers, 88.37% attributed responsiveness as the main
dimension of services quality expected from bank, the corresponding response in the same
dimension as perceived by the customers through this actual experience in the transacting bank
was much lower 61.80%.
Similarly, the expected and actual services qualities assessed by the above dissatisfied customers
on other dimension were 85.40% and 64.05% towards assurance, 84.23%and 63.66% towards
reliability, 84.05% and 59.81% towards empathy, 80.06% and 54.50% towards physical facilities
respectively.
V.0 DISCUSSION
While making an assessment of customers response with regards to his/her overall satisfaction
or dissatisfaction with the transacting banks services, it was found that most of the customers
78.78% were dissatisfied, while only 27.21% customers were satisfied. The interpretation was
based on the services quality assessment made by both dissatisfied and satisfied customers.
Customers who were dissatisfied considered the responsiveness dimension of services quality to
the more important than other dimension. However, on all the dimension of the services quality
the transacting bank was perceived to be poor than the corresponding service offered by the
bank.
VI.0 FINDINGS & CONCLUSION
The overall satisfaction or dissatisfaction of customers with regards to expected and actual
services quality have been analyzed in this research paper and expressed dissatisfaction with the
services offered by the bank. The dissatisfied customers attributed responsiveness dimension of
services quality as the major lacuna with the transacting bank. Among the satisfied customers
too there existed a disparity between the expected and actual service quality experienced at the
transacting bank. These customers suggested that the bank is yet to instill confidence among the
customers that it has the ability to provide excellent services dependably and accurately.
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