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Comparative Study of Service Quality between Private & Public Sector Banks
Abstract:
Service quality and customer satisfaction are very important concepts that banks must
understand in order to remain competitive in business and grow. The banking industry like
many other financial service industries, witnessed the emergence of many private sectors and is
facing a rapidly changing Market, new technologies, economic uncertainties, fierce competition
and especially more demanding customers. Customer service is one integral part of any facet of
banking and it defines future of any banking organization. In banking sector, the whole range of
activity and generation of income swivels around the customer. From a very comfortable and
peaceful environment, now the Indian Banking Sector is characterized by stiff competition for
the customers satisfaction and profit war between different banking groups i.e. (Private bank
vs. Public Bank). This report tries to analyze the comparative analysis of service quality among
these two categories of banks public and private sector banks using the list of service
attributes based on SERVQUAL method.
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Comparative Study of Service Quality between Private & Public Sector Banks
Introduction:
The founding of the commercial banks started with the emergence of the Bank of Calcutta later
renamed the Bank of Bengal in the year 1806, thus making it the oldest commercial bank in the
Indian subcontinent, later its merger with the Bank of Madras, Imperial Bank of India became
State Bank of India. The liberalisation of the Indian economy in 1991 set off a chain of
paradigmatic changes in most sectors. One of the sectors that came in for immediate structural
changes was the financial sector. Although the non-banking financial corporations had already
been operating in the private sector, the government zealously guarded the banking sub-sector
ever since bank nationalisation in the 1970s. The public sector banks operated like any public
undertaking. Obviously, their functioning suffered from similar shortcomings. Amongst these,
no less important a shortcoming was customer service. The liberalisation of the banking sector
brought in stiff competition in the form of no holds-barred private sector banks that marketed
their services amongst the public aggressively. It witnessed the emergence of national megabanking companies such as (ICICI) and Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC)
Banks, for whom customer service was an article of faith. The changed business environment in
general and the banking sub-sector scenario in particular compelled the public sector banks to
give up their elephantine indifference to the needs of the customers. With a view to vying for
the market share with the private sector banks, they started focusing on efforts to provide
quality customer service.
Customer Satisfaction is a measure of how products and services provide by any organization
meet the expectations of a customer. It varies from person to person and service to service. A
customer can be defined as a user or potential user of banking services. A customer would
include an account holder, or a person carrying out casual business transactions with a bank.
The efficiency of a banking sector depends upon how best it can deliver services to its target
customers. In order to survive in this competitive environment and provide continual customer
satisfaction, the banking services providers are required to frequently increase the quality of
services. In banking business it is seen that only 5% increase in customer retention can extend
35% profitability
In the context of the comparative efforts at positioning of private and public sector banks in the
market, this study attempts to assess the level of service quality perceptions of banking subMBA (F&B) Batch VII
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Comparative Study of Service Quality between Private & Public Sector Banks
sector customers and map out the differences between the service quality perceptions and
expectations of customers of private and public sector banks along with the factors responsible
for these differences.
Literature Review:
For the past 30 years various topics such as the nature of service quality, bank choice criteria,
bank switching behavior and buying decision-making have been examined by different
researchers. Amongst the studies carried out on corporate customers, focus has been on the
importance of service in contributing to the development of corporate banking relationships.
The SERVQUAL method was used by Parsuraman, Valarie Zeithaml and Len Berry in 1985 and
was extensively used to study the above topics. In 2000, researchers Bahia and Nantel
developed their own Banking Service Quality scale and claimed that it is more reliable than the
SERVQUAL scale. The BSQ scale has effectiveness and assurance, access, price, tangibles,
service, portfolio and reliability as its attributes.
conducted a study on retail bank customers and developed a new scale with four verticals:
behavioral service, service system quality, quality, service transactional accuracy and machine
service quality. This scale had 21 items and was given weights according to the significance of
the items. It was found that the customers measure the service quality on the basis of two
parameters: organization and transaction. This scale was then used to conduct various other
researches in the same field and it was found out that it was highly useful to the banking
industry; moreover the major benefit of this method was that it could be used to extract fairly
accurate results from large and small samples
In United Arab Emirates , two researchers Al-Tamimi and Jabnoun carried out a research in
order to emphasize the fact that market share of banks is proportional to the service quality
concluding that customers value human relationships the most when perceiving service quality.
In 2005, Cheung and Liao conducted a study on measuring the service quality of Internet
Banking and they presented a user-based model for evaluation of service quality of e-banking.
Empirical results suggest that perceived usefulness, ease of use, reliability, responsiveness,
security and privacy and continuous improvement of e-banking services significantly influence
customer attitudes towards Internet e-banking.
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Comparative Study of Service Quality between Private & Public Sector Banks
The researchers of 20th century did not take into account very important phenomena which was
slowly gathering momentum the growing use of technology and increasing use of social
Media. Private and public sector banks began relying on technology in order to retain
customers, provide better services, to reduce costs and provide customer delight. The private
and foreign banks started a technological revolution in the banking industry. Mr. B.K. Tiwary
suggested that in the new economy mind share leads to market share and mind share is
influenced not only by the promotions and advertisements but more importantly on favorable
customer perception which in turn is based on satisfaction with regard to products, services and
interaction with the customers.
After the banks started integrating its products with IT solutions the customers were also not
far behind. The internet boom of India in the early 2000s started increasing the internet outreach
in internet penetration. As the customers became more tech savvy the technologically
innovative banks were perceived to be futuristic and ahead of times. This is where the private
banks had the edge over its competition vis a vis public banks (D.R. Joshi 2012). But the public
sector banks still enjoy the trust of its customers and leading public sector banks like State Bank
of India, Punjab National Bank and Bank of Baroda started to embrace technology in order to
keep up with the competition.
The competition within the banks was so tough that the products and services offered by the
banks were similar in features and the only differentiating factor was customer experience (J
Sethuraman 2012) . A research done by Pooja Mengi in 2009 found that the customers who had
account with public sector banks were more satisfied as compared to the customers who had
their accounts with the private sector banks. This anomaly was because of the fact that in the
Indian Banking sector the Human Aspect of banking is more important than technical and
tangible aspects of service quality (Usha Lenka in 2009).
As the internet penetration increased, the customers also began to share their experiences about
a bank's service quality and satisfaction on social media networking sites like Facebook, Twitter,
Blogs etc. This has lead to a review of the old research methods of SERQUAL and BSQ, through
this research we aim to combine the traditional methods of research with the new ones in order
to arrive at a holistic approach towards analyzing the service quality of private and public
banks.
MBA (F&B) Batch VII
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Comparative Study of Service Quality between Private & Public Sector Banks
Objective:
1. To find out the parameters on which a customer decides with which bank he wants to be
associated with.
2. To compare the public sector banks and private sector banks in terms of service quality.
The research objective was to examine the following hypotheses:
Null Hypothesis, Ho: There is no significant difference in the service quality between public
and private sector banks.
Alternate Hypothesis, Ha: There is significant difference in the service quality between public
and private sector banks.
Research Methodology:
SERVQUAL Model:
The
research
was
directed
towards
understanding
customers
perceptions
towards
Public and Private banks operating in India. The SERVQUAL model was adapted with some
modification for the study. The instrument was designed keeping into consideration the Indian
banking sector scenario. Attributes like convenience, personal interaction, assurance and access
and competence were considered important in defining bank service quality. The questionnaire
was a SERVQUAL one in 5 key dimensions namely tangibles, reliability, responsiveness,
assurance and empathy. The list of service attributes based on different service dimensions are
ranked and rated by the customer to identify the importance of each service attributes. All the
data were collected from bank customers through survey & Personal Interviews with
consumers of different banks. After the data has been collected, it was entered into SPSS and
was prepared for analysis.
Sample:
Random sampling technique was used for data collection. We had drafted the questionnaire
and floated to respondents over the internet through emails and Facebook. The questionnaires
were administered in English and the responses of the customers was taken on a five-point
MBA (F&B) Batch VII
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Comparative Study of Service Quality between Private & Public Sector Banks
Likert scale with responses varying on the scale of 1 for strongly agree and 5 for strongly
disagree.
The basic demographic profiles of the respondents are as below:
Gender:
Qualification:
Occupation:
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Comparative Study of Service Quality between Private & Public Sector Banks
Marital Status:
Income:
Classification of Questionnaire:
The survey questions have been classified under five servqual parameters to make a
comparative study on service quality of public and private sector banks. The five parameters
are:
1. Tangibility
2. Responsiveness
3. Assurance
4. Empathy
5. Reliability
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Comparative Study of Service Quality between Private & Public Sector Banks
Visually appealing facilities
Tangibility
Up to date technology
Well groomed and well behaved employees
24/7 Contact
Responsiveness
Timely service
Prompt service
Assurance
Polite employees
Employees willing to help
Personal attention
Empathy
Understanding of needs
Service attention on high priority
Reliability
Safe transactions
Trust
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Comparative Study of Service Quality between Private & Public Sector Banks
Age
group
26-30
yrs
20-25
yrs
20-25
yrs
20-25
yrs
20-25
yrs
26-30
yrs
26-30
yrs
26-30
yrs
26-30
yrs
26-30
yrs
26-30
yrs
26-30
yrs
26-30
yrs
26-30
yrs
26-30
yrs
31-35
yrs
26-30
yrs
26-30
yrs
Gender
Bank
Account
Sector
Tangibility
Responsiveness
Assurance
Empathy
Male
SBI
Public
3.33
4.00
3.67
4.00
7.60
Male
HDFC
Private
4.33
4.33
3.67
4.00
4.00
8.13
Male
ICICI
Private
4.67
4.33
4.00
4.33
4.50
8.73
Male
ICICI
Private
4.00
4.33
4.00
4.00
8.13
Female
ICICI
Private
4.33
4.33
3.67
4.00
4.00
8.13
Male
ICICI
Private
4.67
4.33
4.00
4.33
4.50
8.73
Male
SBI
Public
3.67
3.67
4.00
3.33
3.67
7.34
Male
ICICI
Private
4.33
4.33
3.67
4.00
4.00
8.13
Male
Public
4.00
3.67
3.67
3.33
3.67
7.34
Male
SBI
kotak
mahindra
Private
4.00
4.33
4.00
4.00
8.13
Male
HDFC
Private
4.33
4.33
3.67
4.00
4.00
8.13
Male
HDFC
Private
4.67
4.33
4.00
4.33
4.50
8.73
Male
Private
4.00
4.33
4.00
4.00
8.13
Private
4.33
4.33
3.67
4.00
4.00
8.13
Male
HDFC
bank of
america
ICICI
BANK
Private
4.67
4.33
4.00
4.33
4.50
8.73
Male
Citi
Private
4.00
4.33
4.00
4.00
8.13
Male
HDFC
Private
4.33
4.33
3.67
4.00
4.00
8.13
Male
citibank
Private
4.67
4.33
4.00
4.33
4.50
8.73
Male
Reliability
Service
Quality
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Comparative Study of Service Quality between Private & Public Sector Banks
26-30
yrs
20-25
yrs
31-35
yrs
26-30
yrs
31-35
yrs
26-30
yrs
26-30
yrs
26-30
yrs
26-30
yrs
31-35
yrs
26-30
yrs
26-30
yrs
20-25
yrs
20-25
yrs
26-30
yrs
> 35
yrs
26-30
yrs
26-30
yrs
26-30
yrs
20-25
yrs
26-30
yrs
31-35
yrs
Male
ICICI
Private
4.00
4.33
4.00
4.00
8.13
Male
ICICI
Public
3.33
4.00
3.67
4.00
7.60
Female
HDFC
Private
3.67
4.00
4.33
4.00
8.00
Male
ICICI
Private
4.00
4.33
3.67
4.00
4.00
Female
HDFC
Public
3.33
4.00
3.67
4.00
7.60
Male
Private
3.67
3.67
4.00
4.33
4.50
8.07
Male
ICICI
Indian
Bank
Public
4.00
3.67
3.67
3.33
3.67
7.34
Female
SBI
Public
3.33
4.00
3.67
4.00
7.60
Female
ICICI
Private
3.67
4.00
4.33
4.00
8.00
Male
SBI
Public
4.00
3.67
3.67
3.33
3.67
7.34
Male
Public
3.33
4.00
3.67
4.00
7.60
Male
ICICI
standard
Chartered
Private
3.67
3.67
4.00
4.33
4.00
7.87
Male
ICICI
Private
4.00
3.67
4.00
4.50
8.07
Male
HDFC
Private
4.00
4.33
4.00
4.00
8.13
Male
ICICI
Private
4.33
4.33
3.67
4.00
4.00
8.13
Male
ICICI
Private
4.67
4.33
4.00
4.33
4.50
8.73
Male
Private
4.00
4.33
4.00
4.00
8.13
Male
ICICI
kotak
mahindra
Private
4.33
4.33
3.67
4.00
4.00
8.13
Male
ICICI
Private
4.67
4.33
4.00
4.33
4.50
8.73
Male
Private
4.00
4.33
4.00
4.00
8.13
Male
ICICI
Bank of
maharastra
Public
3.67
3.67
4.00
3.33
3.67
7.34
Female
citibank
Private
4.33
4.33
3.67
4.00
4.00
8.13
8.00
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Comparative Study of Service Quality between Private & Public Sector Banks
Statistical Tests:
The following statistical tests were conducted to test the above mentioned hypotheses using
SPSS software:
1. Run test
2. Ks test
3. Independent t test
4. Correlation
5. Regression.
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Comparative Study of Service Quality between Private & Public Sector Banks
Run Test:
Objective: To find whether the sample data are random or not .
H0: Series is random
Ha: Series is not random.
Level of Significance: 5%
Descriptive Statistics
N
Mean
Tangibility
40
4.1420
.31902
3.67
4.67
Responsiveness
40
3.999
.3529
3.3
4.3
Assurance
40
3.950
.2427
3.7
4.3
Empathy
40
3.966
.3178
3.3
4.3
Reliability
40
4.071
.2578
3.7
4.5
Runs Test
Tangibility Responsiveness Assurance
Test Valuea
Empathy Reliability
4.00
4.0
4.0
4.0
4.0
12
14
10
34
28
26
30
35
Total Cases
40
40
40
40
40
Number of Runs
13
14
26
16
11
.838
-1.265
2.224
.000
.569
.402
.206
.026
1.000
.570
It can be inferred that samples are random for Tangibility, Responsiveness, Empathy &
Reliability and not random for Assurance.
MBA (F&B) Batch VII
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Comparative Study of Service Quality between Private & Public Sector Banks
Mean
Tangibility
40
4.1420
.31902
3.67
4.67
Responsiveness
40
3.999
.3529
3.3
4.3
Assurance
40
3.950
.2427
3.7
4.3
Empathy
40
3.966
.3178
3.3
4.3
Reliability
40
4.071
.2578
3.7
4.5
ServiceQuality
40
8.051
.4228
7.3
8.7
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Comparative Study of Service Quality between Private & Public Sector Banks
40
40
40
40
40
40
Mean
4.1420
3.999
3.951
3.966
4.071
8.051
Std.
Deviation
.31902
.3529
.2427
.3178
.2578
.4228
.272
.251
.231
.293
.384
.249
Positive
.272
.174
.226
.182
.384
.249
Negative
-.178
-.251
-.231
-.293
-.266
-.177
1.720
1.588
1.460
1.852
2.428
1.577
.005
.013
.028
.002
.000
.014
Kolmogorov-Smirnov Z
Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed)
It can be inferred from the table that the samples are normally distributed for Assurance and
not normally distributed for other parameters.
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Comparative Study of Service Quality between Private & Public Sector Banks
Independent t test:
Objective: Independent t test is used to compare the mean of two independent samples. In this
case, the two independent samples are service quality values of public and private sector banks.
The SPSS output is as follows:
H0: Mean service quality of private sector banks is equal to the Mean service quality of public
sector banks
Ha: Mean service quality of private sector banks is more than the Mean service quality of public
sector banks
The distribution of the data is checked for the normality with level of significance - 5%
Group Statistics
Type of
sector
Service Quality Private
Public
Mean
Std. Deviation
Std. Error
Mean
30
8.2443
.27875
.05089
10
7.4700
.13703
.04333
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Comparative Study of Service Quality between Private & Public Sector Banks
Levene's
Test for
Equality of
Variances
F
Service Equal
Quality variances
assumed
Sig.
Equal
variances
not
assumed
df
Sig. (2tailed)
95% Confidence
Interval of the
Difference
Mean
Std. Error
Difference Difference Lower Upper
38
.000
.77433
.09219
.58770
.96097
11.585 32.035
.000
.77433
.06684
.63819
.91048
It can be inferred from the table that mean service quality of private sector banks is more than
the mean service quality of public sector banks.
Hence alternate hypothesis is accepted.
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Comparative Study of Service Quality between Private & Public Sector Banks
Correlation:
Objective: The test is conducted to see the correlation of five parameters to the service quality
value and to find the most correlated parameters. The SPSS output is as follows:
Responsive
Tangibility
ness
Assurance Empathy Reliability
Tangibility
Pearson
Correlation
.676**
-.231
.442**
.621**
.759**
.000
.151
.004
.000
.000
40
40
40
40
40
40
.676**
-.229
.629**
.433**
.780**
.155
.000
.005
.000
Sig. (2tailed)
N
Responsiveness
Pearson
Correlation
Sig. (2tailed)
N
Assurance
Pearson
Correlation
Sig. (2tailed)
N
Empathy
Pearson
Correlation
Sig. (2tailed)
N
Service
Quality
.000
40
40
40
40
40
40
-.231
-.229
.198
.124
.173
.151
.155
.221
.446
.285
40
40
40
40
40
40
.442**
.629**
.198
.790**
.882**
.004
.000
.221
.000
.000
40
40
40
40
40
40
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Comparative Study of Service Quality between Private & Public Sector Banks
Reliability
Pearson
Correlation
Sig. (2tailed)
N
ServiceQuality
Pearson
Correlation
Sig. (2tailed)
N
.621**
.433**
.124
.790**
.842**
.000
.005
.446
.000
40
40
40
40
40
40
.759**
.780**
.173
.882**
.842**
.000
.000
.285
.000
.000
40
40
40
40
40
.000
40
It can be inferred from the table that empathy parameter is more correlated and
assurance parameter is least correlated to service quality.
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Comparative Study of Service Quality between Private & Public Sector Banks
Regression:
Objective: Regression analysis is performed to model a relationship between two parameters.
The SPSS output for regression is as follows:
Variables
Entered
Model
1
Variables
Removed
Reliability,
Assurance,
Responsiveness
, Tangibility,
Empathya
Method
. Enter
Model Summaryb
Model
1.000a
R Square
Adjusted R
Square
1.000
1.000
Std. Error of
the Estimate
.0000
Durbin-Watson
1.645
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Comparative Study of Service Quality between Private & Public Sector Banks
ANOVAb
Model
1
Sum of Squares
Regression
Residual
Total
df
Mean Square
6.973
1.395
.000
34
.000
6.973
39
Sig.
.
.000a
Std. Error
(Constant)
1.577E-14
.000
Tangibility
.400
.000
Responsiveness
.400
Assurance
Beta
Sig.
.
.302
.000
.334
.400
.000
.230
Empathy
.400
.000
.301
Reliability
.400
.000
.244
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Comparative Study of Service Quality between Private & Public Sector Banks
Residuals Statisticsa
Minimum Maximum
Mean
Std. Deviation
Predicted Value
7.336
8.732
8.051
.4228
40
Residual
.0000
.0000
.0000
.0000
40
-1.692
1.610
.000
1.000
40
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Comparative Study of Service Quality between Private & Public Sector Banks
Conclusion:
The measurement of service quality has become a significant marketing tool for the banking
sector as a whole which is trying to develop a competitive advantage by learning about their
customers perception towards the service quality attributes. As a part of our research we
collected data which were classified as five empirical service quality measurement heads as
defined by the servquel model. The results showed that all the five attributes held a significant
effect on the customer satisfaction. Improvement in customer satisfaction would mean that it is
gaining competitive advantage. The research can be extended to a larger sample which could
yield different results. The research can be carried out at a more micro level by comparing the
customer satisfaction levels between the Public and private sector banks in the country and
trying to understand the factors which influence customer perceptions towards banks.
The study concludes that in view of the stiff competition in the global business arena where
businesses have to survive and grow on the basis of volumes, instead of margins, service
quality will constitute an essential plank of service marketing. This implies that public sector
banks will have to focus on the reduction of the gap in customer expectations and perceptions
about their service quality if they are to compete in the global marketplace. To this end, public
sector banks should continually assess and re-assess how customers perceive their services to
know whether these banks meet or exceed or fall short of the expectations of their customers.
Such a customer services quality audit, though tedious, will help the banks to pay attention to
potential failure points and service recovery procedure, which could be made integral to
employees' training. In other words, it amounts to empowering employees to exercise
responsibility, judgment and creativity in responding to customers' problems.
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Comparative Study of Service Quality between Private & Public Sector Banks
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