An empirical analysis of New Zealand bank customers’ satisfaction

Abstract

It is important that banks deliver quality services which in turn results in customer satisfaction in today’s competitive banking environment. Within the New Zealand financial service market, competition is deemed to be strong given that there have been new entrants into the market as well as mergers and acquisition and exits over the last ten years (Chan, Schumacher, and Tripe, 2007). In order to retain the customers, customer satisfaction becomes a crux issue to bank management.

This research identifies and examines the factors influencing bank customer satisfaction in New Zealand’s banking industry. Specifically, the goal of this study is to identify the dimensions of perceived service quality; and examine the relationships between bank customer satisfaction and service quality, and perceived value and corporate image. The effects of demographic factors on the constructs are also investigated.

The data was collected from a convenience sample of individual bank customers who bank with a local commercial bank. The results indicate that service quality has the most influence on bank customers’ satisfaction compare to value and corporate image. The results also provide support for the moderating effect of value on the relationships between service quality and customer satisfaction, and the moderating effect of corporate image on the relationships between service quality dimensions and service quality. In addition, the results also reveal that the perceptions of the constructs are primarily affected by age and ethnicity of customers.