A Study of customer satisfaction on E–banking service quality in public and private sector banks with respect to gender and age

 

Manpreet Singh¹, Neha²

¹GNA Business School, GNA University, Phagwara- 144401 Dist - Kapurthala (PB) India.

²GNA Business School, GNA University, Phagwara- 144401 Dist - Kapurthala (PB) India.

 

ABSTRACT:

As the aspirations of the banking customers have increased in India, E-Banking service quality is most significant for banks for ensuring overall customer satisfaction. This research paper aims to focuses on what customer think about the services of Public and Private sector banks. In this study, the primary data was collected from 236 respondents through a structured questionnaire. The main objective of this paper is to study the significant impact of Gender and Age on customer satisfaction towards E-Banking service quality. The scope of study has been kept limited to customers who belong to Jalandhar City. The primary data was collected for the purpose of study of customer satisfaction towards E-Banking service quality in Public and Private Sector Banks. For this study, descriptive statistics is used and Independent t-test is applied through SPSS. This study proves that on the 5% level of significance, the null hypothesis is accepted. There is no significant impact of Age, Gender and choice of public and private sector bank on the factors ease of use, conservation of time, convenience, security, accuracy, reliability, responsiveness, online request handling, frequent updations and overall efficiency.

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION:

Banking can be defined as the business activity of accepting and safeguarding money of other individuals and entities, and then lending out this money in order to earn a profit. Now days, the banking have broadened the scope of their services. These services offered by banks mainly include issuance of debit and credit cards, providing safe custody of valuable items, lockers, ATM services and online transfer of funds anywhere in the world.

 

It is well said that banking plays a prominent role in our day–to day lives. The bank usually performs the function of financial intermediation by pooling savings of people and then channelizing them into investments which involves risk as well as return that helps them to accelerate the growth of the economy.

 

Banking business has done lots of wonder for the whole economy. The concept encourages the flow of money for productive purposes and investments by accepting deposits from the savers and lending the same to borrowers. Thus in return it allows the economy to grow and nurture. In the absence of banking business, our savings would remain idle, many businessmen would not be able to get advances for their businesses and the dream of ordinary people for buying new car or houses will never turn to be in reality. 

 

Concept of E-Banking:

E-banking is also known as “internet banking” or “web banking”. It allows a user to execute financial transaction via internet. It also helps in providing variety of services to the customers including deposits and online payment of bills which is available in local branches. It enables its users to have easy access of their accounts. Moreover, it is a safest, fastest and effective online service that enables one to access their banking accounts anytime and anywhere.

 

E-banking helps us in the following ways:

·       Accurate statement of all bank accounts viz current account, credits, and overdrafts.

·       Transfer of money at national and international level.

·       Payment of all types of bill payments (electricity, water supply, telephone bills, etc.)

·       Confirmation for all transactions done electronically.

·       Easy Management of your credit cards 

 

HYPOTHESIS:

H1: Gender has a significant impact on ease of use.

H2: Gender has a significant impact on conservation of time.

H3: Gender has a significant impact on convenience.

H4: Gender has a significant impact on security.

H5: Gender has a significant impact on accuracy.

H6: Gender has a significant impact on reliability.

H7: Gender has a significant impact on responsiveness.

H8: Gender has a significant impact on online request handling.

H9: Gender has a significant impact on frequent updations.

H10: Gender has a significant impact on overall efficiency.

H11: Age has a significant impact on ease of use.

H12: Age has a significant impact on conservation of time.

H13: Age has a significant impact on convenience.

H14: Age has a significant impact on security.

H15: Age has a significant impact on accuracy.

H16: Age has a significant impact on reliability,

H17: Age has a significant impact on responsiveness.

H18: Age has a significant impact on online request handling.

H19: Age has a significant impact on frequent updations

H20: Age has a significant impact on overall efficiency.

H21: Choice of Public and Private sector banks has an impact on ease of use.

H22: Choice of Public and Private sector banks has an impact on conservation of time.

H23: Choice of Public and Private sector banks has an impact on convenience.

H24: Choice of Public and Private sector banks has an impact on security.

H25: Choice of Public and Private sector banks has an impact on accuracy.

H26: Choice of Public and Private sector banks has an impact on reliability.

H27: Choice of Public and Private sector banks has an impact on responsiveness.

H28: Choice of Public and Private sector banks has an impact on online request handling.

H29: Choice of Public and Private sector banks has an impact on frequent updations.

H30: Choice of Public and Private sector banks has an impact on overall efficiency.

 

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:

The validity of any research is depends upon the systematic methods of data collection and analysing the same in a sequential and logical order. In the study, an extensive use of primary data has been made and making use of description and analytical research. In the study, primary source have been used to collect the data. Primary source was a structured questionnaire, designed for the purpose of getting responses of the respondents regarding services of e-banking. For the study, 236 filled-in questionnaires were collected. This was administrated to all 236 respondents who were aware about online e-banking. The time duration of the study was 2020.

 

DATA ANALYSIS:

The customer’s responses in relation to satisfaction towards e-banking have been analyzed. For this purpose, descriptive statistics and independents t-test (on SPSS) has been used to study the satisfaction of the respondents regarding e-banking services of public and private sector banking.

 

DESCRIPTION OF THE RESPONDENTS:

This section provides description of the respondents who have been included in the sample for the purpose of study.

 

DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE OF THE VARIABLE

This section deals with the demographic profile of the respondents. Percentage method is used to analyse the demographic variables. Following demographic variables are used in this study:

·       Gender

·       Age

 

RESULTS:

RELIABILITY:

The reliability test was run on SPSS. The test was done on all the 236 responses. The reliability of the questionnaire is found to be 0.923 which is above the significant level of 0.05 and hence found the questionnaire reliable.

 

Descriptive Statistics analysis - Age

 

Independent t-test:

 

Interpretation:

The independent t-test was run on SPSS. The significant value (on 5% significant level) of the factors ease of use, conservation of time, convenience, security, accuracy, reliability, responsiveness, online request handling, frequent updations, overall efficiency are 0.247, 0.004, 0.113, 0.019, 0.179, 0.057, 0.144, 0.162, 0.303 and 0.065 respectively. It states null hypothesis for ease of use, convenience, accuracy, reliability, responsiveness, online request handling, frequent updations, and overall efficiency is accepted and there is no significant difference between age and these factors. But the p value for conservation of time, security is 0.004 and 0.019 respectively which is less than 0.05 (p<0.05) that means null hypothesis is rejected and there is a difference between age and these factors.

 

Descriptive Statistics analysis – Gender:

 

Independent t-test – Gender:

 

Interpretation:

The independent t-test was run on SPSS. The significant value (on 5% significant level) of the factors ease of use, conservation of time, convenience, security, accuracy, reliability, responsiveness, online request handling, frequent updations, overall efficiency are 0.795, 0.820, 0.727, 0.407, 0.815, 0.804, 0.193, 0.278, 0.191 and 0.993 respectively. It states null hypothesis for ease of use, conservation of time, convenience, security, accuracy, reliability, responsiveness, online request handling, frequent updations, and overall efficiency is accepted and there is no significant difference between gender and these factors.

 

Descriptive Statistics analysis – Category of Banks:

 

Independent t-test Category of Banks:

 

 

INTERPRETATION:

The independent t-test was run on SPSS. The significant value (on 5% significant level) of the factors ease of use, conservation of time, convenience, security, accuracy, reliability, responsiveness, online request handling, frequent updations, overall efficiency are 0.381, 0.927, 0.062, 0.051, 0.170, 0.050, 0.297, 0.587, 0.879 and 0.643 respectively. It states null hypothesis for ease of use, conservation of time, convenience, security, accuracy, reliability, responsiveness, online request handling, frequent updations, and overall efficiency is accepted and there is no significant difference between the choice of public sector and private sector bank and these factors.

 

DISCUSIONS:

So far, despite their vital importance for the development of the internet, research on consumer evaluation of self-service technologies such as online portals has been limited (Gounaris and Dimitriadis, 2003). As a result, increasing attention is being paid to the differences between the assessments of service offerings on the web portals as compared to the physical marketplace. Parasuraman and Grewal (2000) emphasize the fact that past conceptualizations of the service quality created to evaluate traditional services and characterized by personal interaction between the customer and the employees cannot be adequately applied to a virtual environments, where customers interact with the technology rather than with service personnel. This holds true for traditional service quality models, e.g. SERVQUAL (scale and existing research on web site quality; Parasuraman et al., 1988). Most of the dimensions of previous service quality models are developed to capture the nature of interpersonal service encounters (Cox and Dale, 2001). They assume human interactions throughout the entire transaction process, an aspect that is irrelevant for interactions between customers and online information systems. Here, the quality of the web portal as the technical interface is of vital importance.

 

Several authors (Meuter et al., 2000; Parasuraman and Grewal, 2000; Santos, 2003; van Riel et al., 2001) propose to discard quality scales that are based on the specific service encounter characteristics and instead suggest using general categorizations of services as a framework for developing new quality models for internet-based services. Following this proposition, we draw on existing approaches, which employ global definitions of service quality. Some of the propositions put forward in these studies are outlined in the following.

 

The service model by Berry (1987) and the penalty-reward-approach by Brandt (1988) follow a similar logic but suggest two generic categories of service elements: minimum elements or routine services include all factors and processes that entail demerits if the provider fails to fulfill customer requirements. Value-enhancing services or non-routine-services encompass all elements that exceed customer expectations and are rewarded with bonus points.

 

In extending the two-dimensional functional/technical quality approach by Gro¨nroos (1990) and Gro¨nroos et al. (2000) propose an e-service concept consisting of core services, facilitating services and supporting services. Since it is often difficult to differentiate between facilitating and supporting services, van Riel et al. (2001) employ the term supplementary services in a more general way to denote services that are not part of but closely connected with core services. As a third category of services offered through a web site, van Riel et al. (2001) introduce complementary services that are neither facilitating nor supporting the core service. Thus, whereas supplementary services add value to the core service and are used to differentiate it from similar competing offerings, complementary services have the potential to add value to a portal in its entirety.

 

Similarly, Zeithaml et al. (2002) differentiate between the core services and recovery services. The core service scale measures the service quality of online firms as perceived by the customer and is composed of four out of seven dimensions: efficiency, fulfilment, reliability, and privacy. These dimensions contain criteria customers draw on in order to assess the quality of a service in case no questions or problems arise. The recovery service scale falls into the three remaining dimensions of responsiveness, compensation and contact, which come into effect when customers run into problems or have questions. Responsiveness encompasses the e-service provider’s ability to provide appropriate information in order to prevent further inconvenience and to be able to offer online warranties. Compensation includes “money back” and the refund of delivery costs, while contact refers to the provision of direct contact to a service agent via telephone or online.

 

In our study, the data was collected from 236 respondents.  We found that in most of the factor null hypothesis is accepted. Mostly respondents were male (138) and below the age 30years. The respondents were from mainly private sector banks. Developments in Information technology have given a rise to the innovations in the products & services designing and their supply in the banking sector and finance industry, customer service and satisfaction are their centre point of all the efforts. E-banking has the potential to transform the banking as it offers many benefits which can never be obtained by the traditional banking. E-banking is very helpful in the conservation of valuable time. It improves the efficiency and accuracy of the banking transactions which may be difficult for the human beings on day to day basis.

 

MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS:

The study can be used to identify the people of different age group gender, whether people of upper age mainly above the age of 30 years are using e banking or not. This study found that customers of both public and private sector banks are aware of online banking and using it. In some cases private banks provide more efficient service than public sector banks. Hence the public sector banks can emphasize more on using technology.

 

CONCLUSION:

Today, customer service is one of the most important factors for every organization. To stand in the competition, every organization has to concrete on the service quality. People today want more convenience whether they are using any product or service. They want everything with ease and in efficient manner. Of course the quality matters. E-banking is not a new term now. Many people with different methods are using the online banking. It may be in the form of mobile banking, UPI or any mobile application. Both private and public sector banks play a vital role in development of the technology so that more and more people use the services of online banking. It will definitely reduce the rush on bank’s counters. In the study we found that age, gender and choice of public and private sector banks have no significant difference at 5% significant level. Both males and females are using the services of the online banking and that too of both the age group. Also as there is no significant difference between choice of private and public sector banks that means both are eventually providing good and efficient e-banking services. During the interview of the respondents, few said that they prefer private bank over public bank in using online banking services as the more efficient and provide more services than public banks. In comparison of both public and private sector bank, as per respondents private sector banks are more efficient.

 

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Accepted on 01.06.2020           ©AandV Publications All right reserved