An empirical investigation of customer satisfaction in the Maltese banking industry

Abstract

Purpose: This dissertation aims to gain further knowledge about the relationship between customer satisfaction, service quality and loyalty. It tries to build on existing theories developed over time by different researchers as well as to understand what are the similarities and differences between what customers and employees think. Design/Methodology/Approach: Since this is a topic that has not been thoroughly tackled in Malta, the study adopted an exploratory approach. Semistructured interviews with 2 bank representatives as well as 331 online surveys with university students were conducted. Findings and practical implications: This study indicates that there is a need for managers and employees to adopt a more customer-oriented approach; although employees tend to be very polite and friendly with their clients, they fail to keep the consumer’s needs in mind. It was also established that although banks invest thoroughly in advertising, clientele response to such advertising is limited. So banks need to invest less in the different ways of advertising but adopt the ones that tend to be more intriguing and appealing by the customer. Overall this study proves that customer satisfaction can lead to loyalty but this result depends thoroughly on the quality of the service delivered. Service refers to both the efficiency and features of the product but most importantly to how that product is being addressed to its customer. It was noted that customer satisfaction, loyalty and service quality are directly proportionate to each other; where one increases the other two also increase. Research limitations: The fact that the subject is so vast and research is based on one particular audience, findings cannot be generalized. This means that more research needs to be done in order to see whether different audiences generate different results.