Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a survey that aimed to analyse the state of organisational and operative evolution of the functions and activities overseeing customer satisfaction in Italian banks. Design/methodology/approach -The research was conducted by questionnaire, to which 92 banks responded, representative of 77 per cent of the total assets of the Italian banking system. Findings -The analysis of the results makes it possible to highlight the current approaches aimed at managing customer satisfaction, as well as the extent of integration between this and other management processes within the banks surveyed. The authors found that in these banks customer satisfaction is no longer a staff activity but increasingly a line activity, it involves the responsibility of top management and is a key indicator in staff incentive schemes. Originality/value -The research aims to contribute to the literature on customer satisfaction on the one hand, by verifying if and how banks measure and manage some of the customer satisfaction cause-effect relationships investigated by studies on the subject and, on the other hand, by focusing attention on organisation and internal processes aimed to support the assessment and improvement of customer satisfaction.

The structure of banking sectors varies considerably between European Community countries. The advent of the Single Market in 1992 may, therefore, be accompanied by significant restructuring in those countries with hitherto relatively fragmented banking sectors. Such a situation is highlighted with an overview of Italian banking – the evolution of bank‐market relations is described, changes in competition are outlined and the emerging competitive strategies are assessed.

No abstract