Service Quality In The Banking Industry: A Case Study

According to Palmer (2000), services are products which are essentially intangible and cannot be owned.

McCarthy and Perreault (1993), defined service as a deed performed by one party for another. From the definitions as presented by the various authors, it is clear that they all emphasis that service is essentially intangible. This means that a service cannot be seen physical but the customer experiences it.

(Grönroos, 2004) “Services are a continuous process of interactions between customers and service providers consist of a number of intangible activities provided as solutions to the problems of customers and including the physical and financial resources and any other useful elements of the system involved in providing these services”.

A bank can maintain competitive advantage and build long term relationship with its customers by providing quality services. Several evidences found in literature that there is a significant relation between service quality and customer satisfaction (Sureshchandar et al., 2002; Bouldinget al., 1993; and Bitner,

• Tangibility: this includes physical aspects connected with service such as instruments and equipment, persons, physical facilities like buildings and other observable service facilities.

The above-mentioned ten dimensions have been summed up into only five ones. Researchers agreed on the fact that the below five dimensions are appropriate which help reveal the custom expectations and perception. This new model is called 'Servqual'. This compound word consists of the two words 'Service' and 'Quality', these five dimensions include:

Tangibles

The thing which has a physical existence and can be seen and touched is considered as tangible. In respect of service quality, tangibles can be referred as equipment, physical facilities and their appearance (ambience, lighting, air-conditioning, seating arrangement); and last but not the least, services providing personnel of the organization (Blery et al., 2009). These tangibles are used, in random intervals, by any organization to render services to its customers who in turn assess the quality and usability of these tangibles.