Using Mystery Shopping to Compare the Service Quality of Banks in Turkey

Abstract

This article examines the service quality and performance of banks in Turkey. Specifically, by utilizing mystery (secret) shoppers as a benchmarking technique, the study compares the quality of services offered by different types of banks (state, private, and foreign banks) to identify the strong and weak service quality areas. Based on 351 evaluations by university students acting as mystery shoppers, the results indicate that all the banks were offering an acceptable quality of service. Using the overall mean as a benchmark, it seems that the banks are providing fairly good quality of service in most banking areas, except in building rapport and greeting and closing. Comparisons of the service quality by the three types of banks show that state banks offer lower quality service than private banks and foreign banks. Private and foreign banks offer similar quality banking services. The article also discusses the implications of the findings and the limitations of the study.

How Collective Engagement Creates Competitive Advantage for Organizations: A Business‐Level Model of Shared Vision, Competitive Intensity, and Service Performance

“…Retail headquarters provided the researchers with service quality performance assessment data of all branches, collected over a six‐month period by external secret shoppers. Secret shopper evaluation is gradually becoming a popular method employed in a variety of service organizations and retail operations (Pinar et al, ). The retail chain uses an external company that conducts random service quality evaluations via secret shoppers.…”

“…The scores are then averaged into a single monthly score for each branch. The use of secret shopper evaluation has been found to be a more effective method of evaluation than customer surveys, since service evaluators are specifically trained to observe a variety of potential challenges and nuanced aspects of service quality, thereby providing reliable and valid feedback and evaluation (Finn and Kayande, ; Pinar et al, ; Van der Wiele et al, ).…”

Sweden: Bank of the Year Recognition and Performance

“…Bose & Gupta, 2013;Jantan & Honeycutt, 2013;Yavas, Babakus, & Ashill, 2007); Pinar, Eser, & Strasser, 2009;Chen, 2002). Be that the case, it would appear from this study that (a) service really is the foundation for recognition, but it is a continually evolving standard upward; (b) more recently, additional factors such as sound management, innovation and financial performance have tended to come into play; and (c) it is possibly easier to be recognized as good if the organization is small.…”

Developing a Mystery Shopping Measure to Operate a Sustainable Restaurant Business: The Power of Integrating with Corporate Executive Members’ Feedback

“…For instance, Van Der Wiele, Hesselink, and Van Iwaarden [3] reported on the use of mystery shopping to evaluate services in a Dutch employment agency; Pinar, Eser, and Strasser [4] reported on the use of mystery shopping to evaluate the quality of services in Turkish banks; Mattsson [5] discussed the use of mystery shopping in the Business-to-Business (B2B) sector in Sweden; Hapenciuc, Stanciu, and Costea [6] used mystery shopping to measure speed, accuracy and politeness of travel agents in Romania; and Granatino, Verkamp, and Parker [7] used mystery shopping to measure employee engagement and customer-service performance in a health care setting. Results consistently showed the benefits of mystery shopping across industries and settings while also evaluating costs and other considerations.…”