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realize the importance of customer care and satisfaction. service companies are benefited tremendously through
However, customer needs are normally hidden deep inside their loyal customers (Anderson and Zeithamal, 1984).
the psyche of the customer and are hardly ever spelt out to Gronroos (1982) argued that customers, while evaluating
the banker (Davido and Uttal, 1989). Research findings the quality of a service, compare the service they expect
also revealed that there is a need to change the Indian with perceptions of the services actually received by them.
bankers attention, attitude and commitment, in order to Zeithaml et al., (1994) revealed that there could be a
improve the service quality (Mathur, 1999). However, the transaction- specific quality judgment as well as a global
public sector banks in India have not yet geared up to take judgment reflecting the level of service. Service quality is
up these gigantic tasks concerning the intensity and quality generally measured in two ways (Urbany et al., 1999): (i)
of services delivered to customers. as an overall evaluation of quality of service (i.e. an
overall attitude towards the whole service experience); or
II. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY (ii) as consisting of a range of opinions about different
aspects of the service experience (e.g. perceptions of
The main objectives of the present paper are to Tangibility, Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance, and
describe a conceptual framework of service quality Empathy). Juran (1999) elaborated the customers
involving both service provider and service receiver. Since perception of service quality as: the features of services
present paper is an attempt to investigate the service which meet customers needs and necessities and thereby
quality issues from the perspective of the customers. The provide customer satisfaction. Researches revealed that
current study was aimed at evaluating the service quality customer satisfaction is often influenced by service
of selected banks of India. To support the objective of the quality, object quality, price, and other situational and
study SERVQUAL technique was adopted by using 22 personal factors (Muthukrishnan and Kardes, 2001).
variables grouped under five dimensions, Tangibility, Customers perceptions of services are based on
Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance and Empathy specific dimensions of services (Folkes, 1988) and are
using 7 points Likert scale. This was based on the partly shaped by how well they believe they are
SERVQUAL tool developed by Parasuraman et al (1988). performing their own roles in service delivery systems
To support the main objective the following also formed (Zeithaml and Bitner, 2003). The customer often expects
part of the study. the service to be provided in a specific way or by a specific
1. To present a detailed usage of various service individual when delivering the service (Sureshchander et
quality dimensions in the banking sector in India; al., 2001). Some customers are more demanding than
2. To study the customers perception of service others, having greater sensitivity to, and higher
quality of the selected banks in India. expectations of service. Perceptions are created after
3. To study the major factors responsible for experiencing the service. However, dissatisfaction may
attainment of customer satisfaction occur if expectations are higher than the actual service
4. To analyze the service gaps and to draw experienced by the customer. The perception of actual
inferences thereof, concerning the importance of service is low when the service providers misinterpret
different dimensions of service quality in these customers expectations (Cristina Sousa, 2002).
studies. Customer opinions and ideas, beliefs and thoughts
about a product or service benefit a firm significantly
III. REVIEW OF LITERATURE (Urbany et al., 1989). The customer always attempts to
bridge the gap between his/ her imagination and
There are a number of models described in the experiences about the product or service availed (Hoch and
literature that conceptualized the construct of service Ha, 1986). This process is called by De Bono (1977) as
quality (e.g. Garvin, 1988; Albrecht and Zemke, 1985; pattern-making system, in which a customer always tries
Parasuraman et al., 1988; Lehtinen and Lehtinen, 1991; to make new images and information about the products or
Dabholkar et al., 1996). Parasuraman et al. (1985, 1988) services just to fit into what is already known.
emphasized as Service quality is determined by the Accordingly, an attempt has been made to highlight such
difference between customers expectations of service interactions by using traditional (5-dimensional) and
providers performance and their evaluation of the service modified (10-dimensional) models of service quality, to
they received. The construct of service quality is a justify our present work on innovative service quality in
multidimensional phenomenon that contains various the banking sector.
dimensions that make up the construct (e.g. Parasuraman 3.1. SERVICE QUALITY AND ITS DIMENSIONS
et al., 1988). Thus, service quality has been considered by Quality in service is an elusive concept because of
researchers as an attitude formed through long-term and the intangibles nature of the service offering and the
overall evaluation of a firms performance (Hoffman & definition of quality may vary from person to person and
Bateson, 2001). from situation to situation. Even though a universally
There are many research findings to the effect that accepted definition of quality does not exit till now, most
writers on service quality supports a customers-centered background and hence the banker could emphasize
definition with the reservation that customer expectations personalized attention on customers and understand
are not necessarily consistent or predictable. It is now a specific needs of customers based on their requirements.
fact that consumers of all products and services tend to 3.3. Variables used for the Study:
become more demanding due to the current marketplace The following variables are used for collection of
which is becoming more competitive. As a result, there is a data:
continuous increase in customer expectations and 1. The demographic variables in the study include age,
customers successive demands within the improvement of gender, educational qualification, marital status,
the quality of service (Parasuraman et. al., 1988). Thus, occupation and annual income.
banks as service organizations should always be able to 2. SERVQUAL dimensions Tangibles, Reliability,
meet the needs and demands of those sophisticated Responsiveness, Assurance, and Empathy.
customers effectively and efficiently in order to retain
them. Service quality is a significant indicator to IV. METHODOLOGY
differentiate an organization among the rest of the
competitors (Parasuraman et al., 1988). The present study is concerned with the quality of
3.2. FIVE DIMENSIONS OF SERVICE QUALITY service rendered by public sector banks in Berhampur,
A. Tangibility: Odisha. The study was based on the primary data collected
It means the things which are physically observed from the 300 customers of selected banks using a
by the customers in the bank branch including large ATM structured questionnaire with 22 statements under five
network, personnel, physical facilities, materials and dimensions. Convenience sampling method was used to
appearance. Able and skilled personnel, the quality of select sample respondents. The responses have been
banking products and services, brochures and cards may captured in 7 point Likert scale. 300 questionnaires were
represent tangibles. These qualities provide concrete cues distributed to the customers who had visited and having
for customers to evaluate the capability of the service accounts in the public sector banks in Berhampur and who
provider. are willing to fill up the questionnaire. Finally 250 filled
B. Reliability: questionnaires were received from the customers,
Reliability refers to the trust in companys ability considered as sample respondents. For this study,
of performing service in a proper way, such as acting dimensions of service quality and gap analysis are adopted
according to promises and declarations. A reliable service as primary approaches.
means the banker is able to provide internet connection 4.1. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY:
that is working at desired level throughout the day without The following are the limitations of the study
significant failures; banker should not misuse the 1. The study was based on the perception of customers of
cardholder information and there should be frequent only for public sector banks.
update of new technologies. 2. The study concentrates only on qualitative aspects.
C. Responsiveness: 3. Non-probability sampling technique was applied in the
It refers to service providers willingness to help selection of bank customers.
customers and provide prompt service. It can be measured
by the amount of time needed to deal with customers V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
reported problems and the response duration once the
customer filed a service request. 5.1. Measuring service quality of Banks:
D. Assurance: Servqual is a methodology designed to identify
Assurance is related to the knowledge and the gaps between what customers expected from an
courtesy of employees and their ability to inspire trust and excellent product or service provider and what they
confidence. perceive the service to be from their current suppliers of
Banker may demonstrate assurance to customers by that product and service. The genetic questionnaire as used
behaving courteously and by providing essential by Parasuraman et al (1988) has been modified and used
knowledge to guide customers problems. here with 22 statements under 5 dimensions. The responses
E. Empathy: have been captured in 7 point Likert scale and gap score is
It refers to the caring, individualized attention the calculated by deducting expectations from perception (E-
service provider gives to its customers. Furthermore, P).
customers in the bank may come from different social
The un-weighted score was calculated to normalize the total average score of each dimension.
Weights were assigned by the respondents to identify the level of importance to each dimension
4 The knowledge an courtesy bank employees and their ability to convey trust and confidence 19
5 The attention and caring attitude and ability of the banks 20
The weighted score highlights the area of improvement to satisfy the customers
4.216 3.964
3.507 3.366 3.155 3.24
2.8
2.489
2.075
1.57
An attempt was made to analyze the quality of and 2 points. This implies that the respondents rated
service provided by the banks based on customers these dimensions between agree and partially disagree
expectation and perception. Table 1 to 5 and 6 Exhibit that for the service rendered by their banks. Since the gap score
the level of expectation of the customers for five is very less in Assurance it reveals that customers are
dimensions, namely tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, highly satisfied with the security aspects associated with
assurance and empathy are rated between 7 and 5 the service. Under the rule of servqual, the larger the gap
points, where as their level of perception regarding the score is, the more is the dissatisfaction - Parasuraman
above five dimensions of service quality fall between 5 (1988). Empathy has maximum average gap score of
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