Customer Services in Banks: An Empirical Study in Punjab

Abstract

Apart from attracting new potential customers, business organizations, these days, realize the importance of retaining the existing customers. Developing long-term relationship with latter, requires the firms to ensure customer delight through quality service. Hence, to have a competitive edge, companies/multinational companies are focusing on service quality. In this study, an attempt has been made to analyze the desirability of 1200 bank customers regarding the reputation, service, performance, pricing pattern and location of a bank and the service they actually perceive. Hence, present paper studies the perceptions of bank customers regarding the gap between desirability and availability of banking services in three bank groups, namely, public sector, private sector and foreign banks. The study was conducted in Ludhiana district of Punjab in the month of October; 2020. Three bank branches working in Ludhiana district have been taken from respective bank groups. On the basis of five point Likert type scale, the study concludes that desirability regarding all parameters is very high as compared to availably and hence, gap is widening. Various statistical tools like average, standard deviation, co-efficient of variation and weighted average scores has been used to compare the perceptions of customers regarding banking services of various banks. On the basis of empirical analysis regarding perceptions of bank customers about desirability and availability of banking services, the paper offers some recommendations to improve their services, reputation in the market, technology, location and pricing pattern. The paper also highlights the problems that may arise while implementing these measures and recommends solutions to remove/minimize these hurdles.