Challenges in the Era of Globalization - iaabd

Abstract
Customer satisfaction with retail banking services in Ghana
John Kuada, kuada@business.aau.dk
Aalborg University, Denmark
Bedman Narteh, bnarteh@ug.edu.gh
University of Ghana Business School, Ghana.
Challenges in the Era of Globalization
Edited by Emmanuel Obuah
This article reports a study of the determinants of customer satisfaction of retail banking services in Ghana and
discusses the strategic implications of the findings for the retail banks. The results show that relational, core and
tangible dimensions of service are major determinants of customer satisfaction in retail banking in Ghana.
Technology factors loaded onto the core and tangible dimensions of service quality and combined with the
relational dimension to form a three factor solution as the major drivers of customer satisfaction in retail banking.
Introduction
The beginning of this century has witnessed an upsurge of studies in bank selection decisions and
customer service quality assessment in Africa (see Narteh and Owusu-Frimpong, 2010). The general
conclusion from these studies is that customer satisfaction has become a strategic concern of African bank
managers and therefore requires substantial research attention. The present study makes three
contributions to the growing body of literature in the area. First, it examines the claim by some scholars
that theoretical models and frameworks developed to study customer behaviour and satisfaction in a
Western context may not be appropriate for studying customers in emerging markets. Second, it
contributes to an understanding of the determinants of Ghanaian customers’ satisfaction with retail
banking services in the wake of the dynamic developments within the sector. Third it provides pointers to
other knowledge gaps in the existing literature.
The article continues after this brief introduction with a review of the pertinent literature on customer
satisfaction in the retail banking sector as a basis for the hypotheses tested in the study. This is followed
by a description of the data collection methods and data analysis after which we presented and discussed
the main findings of the empirical investigation as well as their policy, strategy and research implications.
Literature Review, Hypotheses and Model Development
The pioneering work by Parasuraman et al., (1985) in service quality assessment resulted in the creation
of a SERVQUAL model to measure service quality. The model consists of five dimensions: tangibility,
reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. Some recent studies in bank marketing have
regrouped the dimensions in the original SERVQUAL model into relational, core, and tangible
dimensions as key determinants of banking service delivery and customer satisfaction (Al-Eisa and
Alhemoud, 2009). The introduction of electronic information systems has added a fourth dimension -
technology. This has enabled banks to standardise service delivery, lower the cost of services, ensure
improved customer relationship management and has helped to achieve higher levels of customer
participation in the service delivery (Chen, 2005). These dimensions and the demographic attributes of
customers have guided the hypotheses formulation in the present study.
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