Developing a scale for service quality measurement in banks

Purpose – Measuring service quality in higher education is increasingly important for attracting and retaining tuition-based revenues. Nonetheless, whilst undergraduates have received substantial academic exposure, postgraduate-based research has been scant. Consequently, the objectives of this paper are threefold: first, to identify the service factors used by postgraduates in their quality evaluations. Second, to analyse the appropriateness of importance-performance analysis (IPA) in the measurement of service quality and, final, to provide a working example of IPA’s application in a UK-based university. Design/methodology/approach – Convergent interviews were used to elicit attributes of service that were deemed important by taught postgraduate students. These findings were then tested using an online survey. Exploratory factor analysis was used to group the service attributes into latent “service factors”. Each service factor was then tested for service quality using Martilla and James’s IPA technique. Findings – About 20 service attributes were educed from the qualitative stage. From these, four service factors emerged; being, academic, leisure, industry links and cost. Using IPA in a UK university, the findings suggest that the “academic” and “industry links” aspects of service quality are the most critical to postgraduates. The paper’s conclusions suggest that IPA is an appropriate tool for measuring service quality in postgraduate education. Practical implications – Through the application of the IPA framework presented in this research, practitioners can successfully identify areas of service priority and thus allocate appropriate resources to encourage continuous service improvement. Originality/value – This research provides a valuable insight into the service quality needs of the UK postgraduate segment and also a potential conceptual framework for policy makers to use when evaluating their service delivery.

Objective - This study examines the factors affecting the quality of Islamic banking services in Indonesia, and its impact on customer satisfaction. Methodology/Technique - Questionnaires were distributed to 300 people, with 286 respondents having completed and returned the questionnaires. A descriptive analysis was conducted to ascertain the elements of Islamic banking services. Further, multiple regression analysis was used to analyze the influence of the quality of Islamic banking services on customer satisfaction. The results show that all elements of banking services are not in accordance with the expectations of the respondents as customers, particularly with respect to Automatic Teller Machine ('ATM') services. Findings - The results show that, with respect to all elements examined, the value of expectations was higher than the service received by customers. In addition, not all of the study hypotheses were accepted. The expectations of banking services were not influenced by Word of Mouth ('WOM'), personal characteristics or experience. Further, the source of information obtained, the age or income of the respondents, and their education and experience, did not have an affect on the expectations of Islamic banking services. Novelty - A high quality of Islamic banking services significantly affects customer satisfaction. In an effort to improve services in that industry, Islamic banking in Indonesia would benefit from placing more attention on all elements of the services provided to customers, particularly ATM services. Further, based on the findings of this study, the elements of customer service should be addressed regardless of the characteristics of the customers, such as age, income, education or experience. Type of Paper - Empirical Keywords: Service Quality; Customer Satisfaction; Islamic Banks; Indonesia. JEL Classification: G20, G21, G29.

PurposeService quality is an evaluation of how well a delivered service meets customers’ expectations. The purpose of this paper is to provide a reliable scale of measurement for service quality in banks.Design/methodology/approachThe SERVQUAL model was adopted based on a Banking Service Quality (BSQ) model and a two-phase multiobjective optimization model was designed. A structured questionnaire with five-point Likert scale was administered with a 93 percent response rate of 270 sample size. A total of 22 variables were considered based on the BSQ model and the significance of these variables to customers’ satisfaction were investigated. Factor analysis was used to extract the most influential factors on the measure of service quality and four factors were selected namely: they deliver when promised, precision on account statements, queues that move rapidly and sufficient number of ATMs per branch. In order to determine the reliability of the multiple Likert questions in the survey, Cronbach’s α was used indicating a scale reliability of 0.743. Moreover, multiple regression analysis was carried out on the selected factors to design an objective function for the design and evaluation of service quality model. The model design used for benchmarking was done using multiobjective genetic algorithm in MATLAB. Similarly, the model evaluation was done in a java interface using multiobjective particle swamp optimization.FindingsThe evaluation results validated the designed model and showed that the factors they deliver when promised and queues that move rapidly are a more reliable scale of measurement for customer’s satisfaction than the factors precision on account statements and sufficient number of ATMs per branch.Research limitations/implicationsThe implication of the results is that effectiveness and assurance combined with access is a more significant factor for measuring customers’ satisfaction than tangibles based on the BSQ model.Originality/valueThe introduction of a two-phase optimization model for model benchmarking and evaluation as compared to ordinary factor analysis of the dimension constructs.

This study attempts to explore the dimensions of consumer perceived service quality in the context of fitness services provided by gymnasiums and investigate the relationship among service quality, loyalty and overall satisfaction of consumers from the fitness service. A 16-item instrument (SERVGYM) was developed by modifying SERVPERF instrument to measure service quality in gymnasiums in four major cities of India. The scale was validated using confirmatory factor analysis. Structural equation modelling technique was employed to assess the relationship of service quality with loyalty and overall satisfaction of consumers. Four service quality dimensions were identified namely, reliability, customer-orientedness, convenience, and ambiance. All the service quality dimensions were found to have positive influence on both satisfaction and loyalty. Positive relationship between satisfaction and loyalty was also established. The scale contextualised to Indian fitness service (gym) industry is useful to measure service quality in gymnasiums. Understanding of the service quality dimensions and their relationship with loyalty and customer satisfaction is also significant.

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to show the requirement of industry-specific national service quality indices for measuring quality in both traditional and electronic services in various industries in a country. In this study, the literature about service and e-service quality measurements was reviewed, and a three-dimensional framework was developed. It was found out that the dimensions of each service quality measurement were all different from each other due to the different characteristics of the industries that each study has been conducted in. The study showed that there is a need for an industry-specific national service quality index and suggested that national customer satisfaction indices which have existed in the literature can be a model for industry-specific national service quality indices. An industry-specific national service quality index enables national companies to understand their unique industrial characteristics that needed to be improved continuously in order to increase service quality and gain competitive advantage. The index which was proposed to develop in the future was suggested for the first time in this study.
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\nKeywords: Service quality; E-service quality; Service quality dimensions; National customer satisfaction indices; Turkish Customer Satisfaction Index (TCSI).

This study empirically evaluated two models of service quality pertaining to recreationists who visited a Pacific Northwest National Forest. The use of service quality ratings to measure an agency's provision of recreation services, facilities, information, experiences and so forth has grown substantially over the past decade. Greater examination of an overall measure of service quality is needed, as well as a better understanding of what specific items and service quality dimensions best predict overall service quality. In this study, the dependent variable (overall service quality) was operationalised by creating an index of quality domains. The results showed that the quality items were very good predictors of their respective domains, and that the same items were very good predictors of overall service quality. Overall these models were found to be excellent predictive models that accounted for a very high proportion of the variance. The first model, regressing the quality items on the quality dimensions, accounted for 28–50% of the variance, while about 71% of the variance was accounted for when regressing the quality items on the overall service quality measure. The results of this study add to the body of literature suggesting the use of a multiple-item index as a dependent measure of overall service quality rather than a single-item indicator of overall service quality. Additionally, the service quality items and dimensions used in this study contribute to a larger body of literature focused on developing a model of service quality that can be practically applied in an outdoor recreation setting.

This paper presents an applied study that is of a descriptive nature in terms of data collection. The study is conducted in two stages: qualitative and quantitative. It aims to provide a model to explain the factors affecting the quality of agile banking services. The target population in the qualitative stage consists of academic and banking industry experts. In the quantitative stage, the target population consists of the customers of the National Bank of Iran in the city of Qazvin. In this study, in order to assure the reliability of the measurement instruments, three criteria are used, including factor loadings, Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability. Also, in order to evaluate the relationship between the variables and their impacts on each other, the partial least squares method (PLS) and the smart-pls software are used. The results confirm all the research hypotheses including the effects of behavioral quality of service providers, quality of machine services, quality of electronic services, quality of transactional services and quality of service system on the quality of agile banking services.

Purpose The aim of this paper is to contribute to the services marketing literature by developing a scale based on Parasuraman’s SERVQUAL scale for the measurement of distributor perceived service quality at the distributor–manufacturer interface of the pharmaceutical supply chain. Design/methodology/approach Based on a literature review and discussions with experts, a questionnaire was designed basing on the widely used service quality measurement scale (SERVQUAL). Personal survey was conducted among selected distributors spread over three major cities of the Indian pharmaceutical market. The study used the exploratory factor analysis to identify the critical factors of service quality followed by the confirmatory factor analysis (AMOS 20). Findings A valid scale with four dimensions – (reliability, assurance, responsiveness and communication) and 13 items for measuring the distributor perceived service quality was developed which also satisfied all the reliability and validity tests. The findings of the present study indicate that distributor perceived service quality has an effect on satisfaction. Practical implications The proposed scale is an attempt to explore the less researched area. This study will give further insights to researchers to measure service quality at different phases of the pharmaceutical supply chain. The study is limited to three cities; it can be extended to other regions of the country. This study will be helpful to the practicing managers to measure the service quality and improve the performance in the pharmaceutical supply chain. Social implications Service quality in pharmaceutical supply chain is very important, as it directly effects the health of the people, so the proposed scale can be used to control the quality of service. Originality/value The scale developed in this study can also be used for measuring distributor perceived service quality in other manufacturing sectors. This research provides direction and scope for further research to develop new concepts and models in measuring service quality in the supply chain.

A composite service can have its overall Quality of Service (QoS) measure computed with the QoS measures of its constituent services. In the stochastic case of QoS modeling, accurate computation for the probability distribution of the composite QoS measure is NP-hard because of the inherent complexities of probability value calculation for the function of discrete random variables. However, given reasonable assumptions on the monotony of the composite QoS function and on the independence of constituent QoS measures, we have proposed a lower bound approximation algorithm that computes the approximate value of the composite QoS distribution for admission test purpose in much lower-order complexity of time even in the worst case. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified and compared against the naive algorithm using simulative trace data.

This paper investigates the determinants of perceived service quality among the customers of domestic and foreign banks in Dhaka, Bangladesh using a modified version of SERVQUAL model. It finds that in general the foreign banks provided marginally better measures in most of the dimensions than did the domestic banks. For domestic private banks reliability, communication, credibility, security, and tangibility are found to be significantly affecting the service quality. On the other hand, for foreign banks, reliability, credibility, and tangibility are the only significant factors affecting their service quality.Keywords: Determinants of Service quality; Banking industry; Bangladesh; SERVQUAL Model.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/jbt.v6i1.9991 Journal of Technology (Dhaka) Vol. 6(1), January-June, 2011 1-14

This paper examines the concept of service quality in private banking theoretically and empirically and identifies factors which contribute to service quality. A multidimensional and hierarchical model is developed based on the work of Rust and Oliver (in Service Quality, pp. 1–20, 1994) and Brady and Cronin (in J. Mark. 65(3):34–49, 2001). The model is then empirically tested among private banking providers with the partial least squares method. Furthermore, the developed model is compared to other approaches, including Gronroos (in Eur. J. Mark. 18(4):36–44, 1984). Another model for comparison excludes the indirect effects of Gronroos (in Eur. J. Mark. 18(4):36–44, 1984) and focuses on the direct effects on service quality. We can conclude that the model based on Rust and Oliver (in Service Quality, pp. 1–20, 1994) and Brady and Cronin (in J. Mark. 65(3):34–49, 2001) produces the best results and can best explain service quality in private banking. Finally, an analysis of various provider groups is conducted in order to identify differences between private banking providers in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein and between providers with various minimum investment requirements.

Service quality in supermarket retailing: identifying critical service experiences

The study aims to test the nature of the association between the quality of banking services and its role in achieving customer satisfaction. This study tested the quality of banking services in south Asian countries and identified the various relative importance’s representing the quality of banking services. The study included a purposive sample of commercial banks from 139 individual banks, and the study used statistical software STATA to analyse the results. The results presented that there is a positive and important association among the quality of banking services and customer satisfaction. As a result of these challenges, it has become necessary for banking organizations to take into account the philosophy of customer satisfaction, which provides them with a competitive advantage that contributes to achieving high level of profitability.

Purpose This study aims to design and validate a new measuring instrument of service quality, and ultimately to establish a national service quality index for the banking sector. The primary contribution is the insight offered regarding what factors affect service quality and the BSQ Index, a national indicator reflecting the level of service quality within the banking sector. Design/methodology/approach A total of 3380 questionnaires were distributed to the customers of 21 commercial and Islamic banks, of which only 1,519 were deemed usable, yielding a response rate of 44.9 per cent. The proposed 29-item instrument has been empirically tested for unidimensionality, reliability and validity using both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Findings A factorial analysis suggests that service quality has three dimensions namely “Systemization”, “Reliable Communication” and “Responsiveness”, and subsequent multiple regression analysis revealed that “Systemization” is the most important service quality dimension within the banking sector. The overall weighted BSQ Index of 4.00 implies that banking customers are generally pleased with the quality of services rendered by banking institutions. Practical implications The new Bank Service Quality Index (BSQ Index) is expected to be an important complement to traditional measures of economic performance, providing useful information to the banking institutions, shareholders, investors, government regulators, and customers. This composite index shall become an indicator reflecting the level of service quality in the banking institutions. Originality/value The results from the current study are crucial because previous studies have produced scales that bear a resemblance to SERVQUAL, a generic measure of service quality, which may not be totally adequate to assess the perceived quality in the banking sector. Thus, the present study captured customers' evaluation of service quality in a 29-item questionnaire exclusively adapted to the unique nature of the banking sector.

Not only the organization needs empirical data but also they need a model to understand how to integrate servicequality and experience economy concepts to discover the customer's behavioural intention to select a serviceprovider. The purpose of this conceptual paper are to critically review and identify the gaps in current literatureon service quality and experience economy, building relationship between functional quality; technical quality;experience economy towards customer's behavioural intention in selecting a broadband internet service operatorwhen service quality and consumer's perception play as a mediating variable. The proposed conceptualframework assist broadband internet service providers to understand how technical and functional quality; peakexperience can contribute to understand the consumer's behavioral intention in selecting a broadband serviceoperator's services. In addition this paper presents an analysis in various aspects of service quality andexperience economy and come up with a conceptual framework which may value to researchers in consumerbehavior field and mangers in marketing field to provide better service quality to the end users.