The importance of service quality in bank selection for mortgage loans

Abstract

Purpose -This project aims to offer an in-depth understanding of bank customers' buying behaviour in relation to the selection process, and provide bank managers with useful insight into the development of high quality relationships with customers. Design/methodology/approach -The research involved a review of available literature on bank choice criteria, the fieldwork, the identification of factors that affect customers' choice, and the development of related managerial implications. A research questionnaire was administered by personal interviews to 1,092 bank customers in the greater area of Athens. Findings -Four distinct factors were identified as the main choice criteria that influence consumers' bank choice. Bank service quality is the most important element that customers consider in order to select their mortgage providers and establish a long-term relationship with them. The other three refer to product attributes, access, and communication.Research limitations/implications -Limitations relate to the use of non-probability sample and the restricted geographical area of the field research. This study contributes to the body of academic knowledge by shedding more light into the role of service quality in the selection process of mortgage provider. Practical implications -An understanding of consumer buying behaviour with respect to mortgage loans is important to bank managers for the attainment of organisational objectives that are focused on building beneficial customer relationships. Management guidelines for improving service quality are presented. Originality/value -The paper manages to identify the perceived important characteristics of banks and particularly highlight the role of service quality in bank selection for mortgages and further development of long-term relationships.

The Impact of Service Quality on Customer Loyalty: A Study of Banks in Penang, Malaysia

“…Loyalty program can be used as one of the tools to retain customer. With the emergence of foreign bank, local bank need to improve their service quality by This study shows a significant relationship between assurance and customer loyalty and is consistent with previous studies including Lymperopoulos et al (2006) and Ndubisi (2006). In this study, assurance was found to be a significant prediction of customer satisfaction and this is in line with Ndubisi (2006) arguing the communication is clearly a strong indicator of overall satisfaction and important source of customer satisfaction in the Malaysia banking sector.…”

“…Parasuraman et al (1988) defined assurance the knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to inspire trust and confidence. Several studies suggest that the exchange of information is an important part of both traditional selling and relationship marketing which may lead to a shared understanding (Ndubisi, 2006;Lymperopoulos et al, 2006). Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed:…”

“…Although there has been criticism from some other researchers to SERVQUAL instrument (Johnston, 1995), yet SERVQUAL is the instrument most utilized for its confirmatory factor analyses in most cases. Thus, up to date, SERVQUAL has proven to be a parsimonious model that has been used in various service organizations and industries to measure service quality including banks (Mc Alexander et al, 1994;Cowling & Newman, 1996;Levesque & Mc Dougall, 1996;Caruana et al, 2000;Caruana, 2002;Sureshchandar et al, 2002;Paswan et al, 2004;Seth et al, 2005;Lymperopoulos et al, 2006).…”

“…Success of a service provider depends on the high quality relationship with customers (Panda, 2003) which determines customer satisfaction and loyalty (Jones, 2002 as cited by Lymperopoulos et al, 2006). Research has shown repeatedly that service quality influences organizational outcome such as performance superiority (Poretla & Thanassoulis, 2005), increasing sales profit (Levesque & Mc.…”

Service Delivery and Drivers of Customer Satisfaction as Determinants of Public Relations of Food Establishments in Region XI

“…But despite knowledge on this, the restaurant industry is undergoing major changes due to rapid urbanization and changing lifestyles, which cause the increase in eating out trend and sways consumers' choice on which types of restaurant to be visited. Adding to the dilemma, this industry sometimes falls short of being able to measure the value of public relations to their business (Lymperopoulous, Chaniotakis & Soureli, 2006) [33]. As explored in the vast literature, various authors have already examined service quality, food quality and customer satisfaction constructs in different settings in different countries, such as in the healthcare industry (Yeşilada & Direktör, 2010)[50], the hotel industry (Dedeoğlu & Demirer, 2015) [17], retail settings (Anselmsson & Johansson, 2014[6]; Omar, Shaharudin, Jusoff, & Ali, 2011), tourism industry (Debata, Patnaik, Mahapatra, & Sree, 2015 [16]; Al-Tit & Nakhleh, 2014) [4], the gaming industry (Wu, 2014), as well as the food industry (Marinelli, Simeone, & Scarpato, 2015 [34]; Wang, 2015 [46]; Kafetzopoulos, Gotzamani, & Psomas, 2014 [28]; Bujisic, Hutchinson, & Parsa, 2014 [13]; Jang & Ha, 2014; Wettstein, Hanf, & Burggraf, 2011) [47].…”