This study examines the relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction regarding Islamic banks as well as conventional banks in Pakistan. It also investigated how service quality affects customer satisfaction by assessing the magnitude of the relationship between selected variables. This study is important due to an emerging trend of Islamic banking practices in Pakistan in the existence of conventional banking system. Data were collected from 720 bank customers by using stratified random sampling. SPSS 15.0 version is applied for data analysis. The results reflect that there is strong positive relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction in case of Islamic banks as well as in case of conventional banks. Findings showed that there is stronger positive relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction in Islamic banks as compared to Conventional banks in Pakistan. The study has a number of implications for bankers, policy makers and academicians.

This comparative research was designed to investigate the impact of service quality on customer satisfaction in the Pakistani banking sector. Hypothesis developed for the study was higher level of service quality leads to higher level of customer satisfaction. A sample of two hundred respondents, (one hundred from a foreign bank and one hundred from a public sector / nationalized bank located in the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad) was drawn on the basis of simple random sampling. Various constructs of SERVQUAL model developed by Zeithaml and Bitner (1996) and five point customer satisfaction tool developed by Taylor and Baker (1994) were adopted and used for data collection. Data were analyzed through SPSS version 14. Results of the regression analysis indicated that service quality was proved to be a strong predictor of customer satisfaction in case of the foreign bank with the R2 value of 0.644 accepting research hypothesis and rejecting null hypothesis as compared value R2 of 0.156 that does not support the research hypothesis in case of public sector bank. The study concluded that service quality, if managed effectively, can contribute significantly towards customer satisfaction.

Emotional intelligence and service quality--this study was designed to examine the relationship between the said two variables. While using teacher made tools from the body of knowledge, data was collected through a self administered questionnaire from the officers of two leading banks in Pakistan; one was foreign bank that paid more attention to the improvement of service quality and the other one was well reputed, fastest growing local bank, did not spend much on quality issues as was the practice in foreign bank. SPSS version 12 was used for data analysis. The empirical analysis revealed that emotional intelligence is a strong predictor of service quality in case of foreign banking in Pakistan.

Keeping in view the significance of TQM in todays competitive banking environment, the study was designed to look into the quality implementation level of commercial banks in Pakistan. Main offices of all commercial banks operating in Pakistan were contacted and were asked about the level of implementation of TQM in their bank; whether the quality implementation is at its introductory, middle, final or fully implemented stage. The data indicated that majority of the banks in Pakistan are at the introductory stage where as almost one fifth claim having TQM fully implemented. The situation highlights the level of effort put by management of banks operating in Pakistan and initiatives taken by them in respect of quality management. The findings of the study may be passed on to Central Bank for further necessary action and follow up.