ASSESSING THE CUSTOMER SATISFACTION FOR KOKAN MERCANTILE CO-OP BANK LTD

Introduction - Service quality and customer satisfaction influence the purchase intentions in service environment (Taylor & Baker, 1994). Quality of service rendered by the bank is of paramount importance. Better quality of services provided by the bank has a positive influence on satisfaction of its customers and it directly contributes to profitability of banking industry (Ladhari et al, 2011). Service quality is becoming more critical for the banks to maintain their market shares (Jabnour, Hassan, Al Tamimi, 2003). Many organizations (including banks) having resort to superior service quality have been found to be market leaders in terms of sales & long-term customer loyalty and retention (Anderson and Sullivan, 1993; Boulding et al, 1993; Eklo & Westlund, 2002). Customer expectations are beliefs about a service that serve as standards against which service performance is judged (Zeithaml et al, 1993), which customers think a service provider should offer, rather than, on what might be on offer (Parasuraman et al, 1988). According to the service quality theory (Oliver, 1980), it is predicted that customers will judge quality as ‘low' if performance does not meet their expectations and quality as ‘high' if performance exceeds expectations. Quality spells superiority or excellence (Taylor and Baker, 1994; Zeithaml, 1988). Purpose - The purpose of this research is to determine the impact of service quality of Kokan Mercantile Co-op Bank Ltd. on its customers and to throw light on the satisfaction level of customers so that managers in the organization can improve the quality of services rendered. Kokan Bank is an Urban Cooperative bank, headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Cooperative banks work as a balance center for ordinary customers and their indebtedness (Gupta & Jain, 2012). These banks provide services such as accounts, safe deposit lockers, loan or mortgages to private and business customers. Urban Cooperative banks are enjoying a predominant position in the banking industry (Gnanasekaran et al, 2012). Cooperative banks are involved in local development and contribute to the sustainable development of the region situated (Pathak et al, 2012). Methodology - This research attempts to assess the overall customer satisfaction of Kokan Bank using the SERVQUAL instrument. SERVQUAL is a multi-item scale developed to assess customer perceptions of service quality in service industry. It covers five service quality dimensions using two segments in the form of a questionnaire for the customers. Each segment contains the same 22 questions. A numerical weight is assigned to each response of the customers to measure service quality. In the present research, primary data collected by a facilitated survey of 200 bank customers, using structured questionnaire, has been subjected to SERVQUAL tool to achieve the results. Results- The present research has revealed that the overall perception of the quality of service provided by the Kokan Bank is within the acceptable limit for the five aspects of service quality measured by the SERVQUAL instrument. While the overall customer perception of the service quality provide by the bank is within the acceptable level, analysis of the difference between the expectation of excellent service quality and perceived service quality throws light on the need for improvement by bridging the customer service gaps. Managerial implications - Analysis of the difference between the expectation of excellent service quality and perceived service quality throws light on the need for improvement by bridging the customer service gaps in certain areas of service delivery by the bank.