Customers’ Satisfaction Towards the Services of Commercial Banks in Bangladesh: A Study on Selected Banks

Abstract

In modern world, due to the expansion of multidimensional economic factors, banking sector is facing some challenges such as earning expected profit, survival through several competitions, providing satisfaction to the customers, retaining the volume of the customers and so on. Bangladesh’s banking sector is not an exception to the above challenges. In order to face the challenges, the commercial banks are trying to diversify their services for satisfying the needs of the customers. In fact, customers are the final orbiter and key phenomenon for attaining the ultimate goal of the banks. In the context of competitive banking, customers are the king in all respect of the banking business. Hence, customers’ satisfaction towards the service of commercial banks is much more important. The present study, therefore, aims at analyzing, examining and comparing the customers’ satisfaction towards the service of commercial banks. In doing so, customers’ satisfaction towards choosing the factors of selected banks, different services and service-related issues have been covered in this analysis. However, for analyzing as well as comparing customers’ satisfaction, some indicators have been taken in case of each service and service-related issues.

This research has been conducted on the basis of primary data though secondary data has also been used. In true sense, characteristically this is an in-depth, descriptive and empirical research and concluding remarks have been drawn on the basis of results of different statistical tools. The researcher has purposively selected a total of six prominent commercial banks of Bangladesh. For collecting data, 384 respondents were selected where depositors and borrowers of PCBs were 120 and 112 respectively and depositors and borrowers of SCBs were 84 and 68 respectively. To conduct the field survey, two sets of structured questionnaires were prepared following the Likert summated scaling method. The processing and analyzing of data have been made applying descriptive and inferential statistical tools such as mean, standard deviation (SD), co-efficient of variance (CV), frequency, percentage frequency, one tail Z test and cluster analysis with the help of statistical packages for social science (SPSS) software 16.0 version.

From the result of the analysis, the key findings have shown that choosing the services of a specific bank and the value of CV of the depositors’ perception towards goodwill and well recognition for PCBs is lower than that of SCBs. It is observed that the opinion of PCBs is less deviated than SCBs. On the other hand, in case of borrowers in choosing the services of a specific bank, the value of CV of the borrowers’ perception towards good relation with banker for PCBs is lower than that of SCBs. It is observed that the opinion of PCBs is less deviated than SCBs. Regard the behavior of the bankers, the value of CV of the borrowers' attitude towards banker, remains indifferent to customers for PCBs and it is lower than that of SCBs. It indicates that the opinion of PCBs is less deviated than SCBs. On the question of the services rendered by the bankers, the value of SD of the depositors’ perception towards banker’s requests to come later for SCBs is lower than that of PCBs. It is observed that the opinion of SCBs is less deviated than PCBs.

In regard to the services of internet and online banking, most of the customers express their attitude that banking services would be easier and more prompt though the services charge would be higher. Regarding the services of ATM, all the customers have agreed with the ATM’s revolutionary contribution to ensuring 24-hours money withdrawal and availability in convenient location. In this regard, most of the customers face the unavailability of ATM booth in their concerned areas. Sometimes, due to unavailability of money at ATM booth, the customers of PCBs do not withdraw required money as per their necessity. However, customers’ satisfaction towards the effects of computerization in banking is remarkable. A good number of customers opined that due to computerization, services have become prompt and errorless. On the other hand, a number of customers commented that services have become errorless but not prompt due to automation. It has been observed that the customers of SCBs and PCBs are more satisfied with service of opening account, depositing money, encashment of general check and demand draft (DD), depositing of monthly installment, knowing account balance, getting checkbook, preparing bank draft and DD, collecting domestic and outstation checks than those of SCBs and PCBs. In this regard, comparatively high level of satisfaction is observed among the customers of PCBs than that of SCBs. Since the service quality and the bankers’ behavior of PCBs and SCBs are not up to the mark considered by the perception of the customers, researcher, therefore, suggests the respective banks to arrange effective workshops by participating bank officers that may be helpful to improve the issues as much as possible. For rendering smooth services of opening an account, PCBs and SCBs should arrange separate desk. Also, PCBs and SCBs should take necessary to steps render the prompt and timely services relating to opening account. However, in the end, a set of recommendations have been made with the hope that bank authorities, planners, policy makers and regulates would be benefited to designing appropriate customers’ service programs, which would satisfy the customers’ need and increase profitability of the banks. Finally, findings of the study are remarkable. According to descriptive statistics, the entire service quality and service-related issues of PCBs are better than that of the SCBs and the service quality of private commercial banks (PCBs) are higher than that of state-owned commercial banks (SCBs). The differences of services between the PCBs and SCBs are found statistically significant as tested by empirical statistics. Another important finding is that the overall service quality of private commercial banks (PCBs) is better than that of state-owned commercial banks (SCBs) in accordance with the results of descriptive statistics.