In present era delivery of better quality customer services has become a strategic practice for firms in almost all sectors. Better quality services are an abstract term whose explanation varies from customer to customer. Further services are intangible in nature thus it is very difficult for organisations to understand and practice the philosophy of providing quality services. Zeithamal and Bitner (2001) highlighted that the task undertaken by organisations, the processes followed by organisations to complete the task and the procedure through which the staff delivers services to customers determine the level of service quality of an organisation. Customer’s satisfaction can only be attained by organisations if they are able to provide quality services at affordable prices after matching customer’s expectations (Cronin and Taylor, 1992: 55-68; Parasuraman et al., 1988, 1985). Many researchers have developed various models to explain the various dimensions that measures service quality.

In SERVQUAL model Parasuraman et al (1985) opined that service quality is basically the gap in the minds of customers regarding the expected level of service that can be provided by firms and perceptions regarding the level of service that is delivered by the firms. They have identified five dimensions of service quality: (1) reliability, (2) assurance, (3) tangibility, (4) empathy, and (5) responsiveness. Dabholkar et al (1996) identified from their study that service quality is multidimensional and they proposed three levels to study retail service quality which are; (1) a customer’s overall perception of service quality, (2) primary dimensions, and (3) sub dimensions. Due to its important role organisations are paying too much attention for enhancement of service quality. Gronroos (1984) highlighted the functional and technical aspects of service quality whereas Swan and Comb (1976) indicated that service quality is a psychological concept.

Lewis and Mitchell, (1990) indicated the growing importance of service quality and showed the linkages between better quality and organisational performance. He highlighted that better quality services will result in customer satisfaction and customer satisfaction will help in retention of customers which will help in attaining higher levels of profits. According to Zeithamal and Bitner (1996) customers found it difficult to evaluate and choose services because they are non-standardize and intangible. Axelsson and Wynstra (2002) claims that purchasing of services is more difficult than purchasing of goods because of intangibility, heterogeneity, simultaneity and perishability. Financial services sector has witnessed a sea change in recent times. The policies of Government and regulators have forced financial institutions to provide quality services to customers. Further awareness of customer rights have also increased over the years which has made today’s customers very practical and demanding. In their study Nguyen and LeBlanc, (1998) opined that customers receiving higher levels of service quality will form a favourable image of the banking institutions. Favourable image of banking institutions will enable them to attain competitive positioning in the markets. Service quality enhances corporate image of commercial banks (Bravo et al, 2009). There is a growing awareness among banks to make maintenance of service quality of a priority activity of service construct Bhat, (2005). In the above background the researchers have identified gap of expectation and perception of different aspects of services offered by selected public and private sector banks in the city of Raipur.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:

The data for the study was collected from 200 respondents of selected bank through a schedule containing 22 statements of SERVQUAL developed by Parsuraman et al. The data with respect to perceptions and expectations of customers of two public and two private sector banks was collected on a five point Likert scale, where 5 stands for strongly agree and 1 stands for strongly disagree. All the customers were contacted by researchers through telephone and took prior appointment in evening hours and holidays to conduct personal interview for the purpose of the study. The collected was analysed using SPSS.

ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION:

Table 1 shows customer profile by type of bank on five parameters namely: age, gender, education, occupation, annual income. It is found from the table that 71.4% and 87.5 % respondents in the age group 46- 55 years and above 55 years transact through public sector banks.

This could be due to the fact that they have opened their account in public sector bank before the entry of private sector banks in their area or locality. This assumption is supported by transaction done by the respondents of age group 25-35 years and 36-45 years. 38.4% respondents of age group 25-35 years and 37.9% of age group 36-45 years transact through public sector banks. These respondents had option before them to choose between the two types of banks and their wide range of services. 61.9% of the respondents are operating through public sector banks as they might be financially dependent on their parents and their parents have opened their account since they were children. The χ²value is significant at 1% level of significance which indicates that age group of respondents and their choices of bank are dependent on each other.

It is found from the same table that transaction behaviour of respondents of different gender are more are less similar and χ²value for variation in gender is not significant.

Table 1: Customer Profile by Type of Bank

Parameters		Public Sector Bank			Private Sector Bank			Total			Chi Square
		Frequency	%	Frequency		%	Frequency			%
Age	Below 25 years	39	61.9	24		38.1	63			100.0	16.984^*
	25-35 years	33	38.4	53		61.6	86			100.0
	36-45 years	11	37.9	18		62.1	29			100.0
	46-55 years	10	71.4	4		28.6	14			100.0
	Above 55 years	7	87.5	1		12.5	8			100.0
Gender	Male	81	52.9	72		47.1	153			100.0	2.253
	Female	19	40.4	28		59.6	47			100.0
Education	Under Graduate	3	50	3		50	6			100.0	3.027
	Graduate	69	51.1	66		48.9	135			100.0
	Post Graduate	22	43.1	29		56.9	51			100.0
	Professional	6	75.0	2		25.0	8			100.0
Occupation	Government Service	20	57.1	15		42.9	35			100.0	8.294
	Private Service	43	44.3	54		55.7	97			100.0
	Business	11	37.9	18		62.1	29			100.0
	Student	22	68.8	10		31.2	32			100.0
	Others	4	57.1	3		42.9	7			100.0
Annual Income	Below Rs. 2 Lakh	57	59.4	39		40.6	96			100.0	6.689^**
	Rs. 2 - 5Lakh	36	40.4	53		59.6	89			100.0
	Rs. 5 – 10 Lakh	7	46.7	8		53.3	15			100.0
All Sample								200	100.0
Level of significance * 1 % and ** 5%

Table 2: Comparison of Expectation and Perception in Public and Private Sector Bank

	Public Sector Bank				Private Sector Bank
Components	Expectation	Perception	Gap	t -Value	Expectation	Perception	Gap	t- Value
Modern Looking Equipment	4.45	3.65	-0.75	-3.530*	4.75	4.58	-0.17	-10.030*
Visually Appealing Physical Facilities	4.40	3.49	-0.91	-2.570*	4.63	4.42	-0.21	-9.102*
Neat Appearance of Employees	4.71	4.06	-0.65	-2.575*	4.88	4.61	-0.27	-5.662*
Visually Appealing Materials	3.97	3.18	-0.79	-3.404*	4.32	3.98	-0.34	-8.094*
Tangibility	4.3825	3.595	-0.7875	-3.02	4.645	4.3975	0.2475	-8.222
Keeping Promises	4.04	3.52	-0.52	-1.779	4.21	3.70	-0.51	-1.910**
Problem Solving	4.52	3.65	-0.87	-1.568	4.64	4.23	-0.41	-6.779
Dependable	4.37	3.66	-0.71	-1.171	4.47	3.94	-0.53	-3.153
Delivery as per Promise	4.18	3.62	-0.56	-.691	4.25	3.61	-0.64	.100*
Keeping accurate Records	4.46	4.20	-0.26	-2.985*	4.71	4.67	-0.04	-5.099*
Reliability	4.314	3.73	0.584	-1.6388	4.456	4.03	0.426	-3.3682
Information about when Service will be performed	4.42	3.57	-0.85	1.762	4.26	3.64	-0.62	-.744
Prompt Service	4.56	3.79	-0.77	.000	4.56	4.06	-0.50	-2.797*
Willingness to help	4.66	3.43	-1.23	-.946	4.73	4.40	-0.33	-10.625*
Response to request in time	4.61	3.42	-1.19	-.247	4.63	4.01	-0.62	-5.831*
Responsiveness	4.5625	3.5525	-1.01	0.569	4.545	4.0275	-0.5175	4.9992
Customers Confidence on Employees	4.03	3.69	-0.34	.694	3.95	3.83	-0.12	-1.344
Feel Safe during Transaction	4.57	4.38	-0.19	-3.470*	4.84	4.84	0.00	-5.592*
Courteous Employees	4.55	3.28	-1.27	-2.038**	4.72	4.46	-0.26	-13.934*
Query Handling	4.74	4.39	-0.35	-3.369*	4.94	4.69	-0.25	-3.197*
Assurance	4.4725	3.935	0.5375	-8.183	4.6125	4.455	-0.1575	-6.0167
Individual attention by Bank	4.31	3.05	-1.26	-.319	4.34	4.02	-0.32	-12.596*
Convenient Operating Hours	3.86	3.18	-0.68	3.090*	3.51	3.14	-0.37	.473
Personal Attention to Customers	4.25	3.08	-1.17	-1.182	4.36	4.07	-0.29	-12.523*
Customer’s best interests at heart	4.48	3.84	-0.64	2.528**	4.24	3.90	-0.34	-.642
Understand Specific Need of the Customer	4.81	4.44	-0.37	-3.487*	4.99	4.83	-0.16	-4.550*
Empathy	4.342	3.518	-0.824	0.1575	4.288	3.992	-0.296	-7.459
Level of significance * 1 % and ** 5%

It is observed from the table that respondents of different educational groups have more or less similar choices with respect to transaction from public and private sector banks. Taking into account the occupations, respondents having government service, student, and others have shown clear preference for public sector banks than other groups (44.3%, 68.8% and 57.1% respectively); whereas businessmen (62.1%) and respondents having private service (55.7%) prefer private sector banks. With respect to preferences of respondents of income groups wise, only respondents of income group below Rs. 2 Lakh (59.4%)other group prefer private sector banks. The χ²value is significant at 1% level of significance which indicates that income of respondents influence their choice of a bank.

After comparing opinion of respondents for perceptions and expectations, it is identified from the table no.2 that the gap (P-E) is negative for all the five factors i.e. tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy of public sector and private sector bank customers which shows their dissatisfaction. The highest level of dissatisfaction is found with respect to courteousness of employees (Assurance), followed by individual attention by Bank(Empathy), willingness to help (Responsiveness), personal attention to customers (Empathy), response to requests in time(Responsiveness) among customers of public sector bank. Whereas the dissatisfaction among customers of private sector bank is not high as compared to the customers of public sector bank; though there is satisfaction among customers of private sector bank with respect to safety of transactions (Assurance).

CONCLUSION:

It can be concluded from the study that the expectation of customers of financial service sector do not differ significantly with respect to age, gender and income of respondents with respect to either public or private sector banks. Customers are demanding better quality services irrespective of ownership style. Further it can also be seen that banks in Raipur are dissatisfied with the behaviour of employees who are delivering services. It is necessary for banks to train their employees in order to become more responsive towards customer needs. In banking institution innovations can be copied and same product and services can be provided to customers very easily by competitors, thus it is very difficult to differentiate banks on the basis of financial products. The people aspect of service is the most visible aspect of service performance which distinguishes services of one bank from another therefore employees must be trained to become an USP by banks.

REFERENCES:

Axelsson, B. and Wynstra, F. (2002), Buying Business Services, Wiley, Chichester.

Bhat, Mustaq A. (2005), The Journal of Business perspective, January 2005, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 11-20.

Bravo, Rafel., Teresa, M Momntaner., and Pina, Jose M. (2009), The Role Bank Image for Customers versus Non-Customers, International Journal of Bank Marketing, Vol. 27, Iss. 4, pp. 315-334.

Cronin, J. J. and Taylor, S. A. (1992), “Meauring Service Quality: A Re-examination and Extensions”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 56, July, pp. 55-68.

Dabholkar, P., Thorpe, D. I. and Rentz, J. O. (1996), A Measure of Service Quality for Retail Stores: Scale Development and Validation, Journal of Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 2-16.

Gronroos, Christian (1984), A Service Quality Model and its Marketing Implications, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 79(6), pp. 875-885.

Lewis, Barbara R. and Vincent W. Mitchell (1990), Defining and Measuring the Quality of Customer Service, Marketing Intelligence and Planning, 8 (6).

Nha Nguyen, Gaston LeBlanc (1998), The Mediating Role of Corporate Image on Customers’ Retention Decisions: An Investigation in Financial Services, International Journal of Bank Marketing, Vol. 16, Iss. 2, pp. 52-65.

Parasuraman, A. Zeithamal, V. A. and Berry, L.L. (1985), A Conceptual Model of Service Quality and its Implications, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 49, Fall,pp. 41-50.

Parasuraman, A. Zeithamal, V. A. and Berry, L.L. (1988), SERVQUAL: A Multi-item Scal for Measuring Consumer Perceptions of the Service Quality, Journal of Retailing, Vol. 64, No. 1,pp. 12-40.

Swan, John E. and Linda Jones Comb (1976), Product Performance and Consumer Satifaction: A New Concept, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 40 (April), pp.25-33.

Zeithamal, V. A. and Bitner, M. J. (1996), Services Marketing, Singapore, McGraw Hill.

Received on 22.08.2015 Modified on 17.09.2015

Asian J. Management; 6(4): Oct. -Dec., 2015 page 291-294

DOI: 10.5958/2321-5763.2015.00042.6