Customer Services in Banks at Crossroads: An Empirical Analysis

Abstract

A part from attracting new potential customers, business organizations, these days, realize the im portance o f retaining the existin
customers. D eveloping long-term relationship with latter, requires the firm s to ensure custom er delight through quality servk
Hence, to have a com petitive edge, com panies/m ultinational com panies are focusing on service quality. In this study, an attem pt k
been m ad e to analyze the desirability o f 1200 ban k custom ers regarding the reputation, service, perform ance, pricing pattern an
location o f a ban k an d the service they actually perceive. Hence, present pap er studies the perceptions o f ban k custom ers regardin
the gap between desirability an d availability o f ban kin g services in three b an k groups, namely, pu blic sector, private sector ani
foreign banks. The study was conducted in L u dhian a district o f Punjab in the m onth o f October; 2008. Three b an k branches workin
in Ludhiana district have been taken from respective b an k groups. On the basis o f fiv e poin t Likert type scale, the study conclude
that desirability regarding all param eters is veiy high as com pared to availably an d hence, gap is widening. Various statistical tool
like average, standard deviation, co-efficient o f variation an d weighted average scores has been used to com pare the perceptions a
customers regarding banking services o f various banks. On the basis o f em pirical analysis regarding perceptions o f b an k customer
abou t desirability'and availability o f ban kin g services, the p ap er offers som e recom m endations to im prove their services, reputatio)
in the market, technology, location an d pricing pattern. The pap er also highlights the problem s that m ay arise w hile implementif
these measures an d recom m ends solutions to rem ove!m inim ize these hurdles.