Anne M. Smith

Modelling bank customer satisfaction through mediation of attitudes towards human and automated banking

Introduces a model which posits a crucial role for the evaluation of bank customers’ attitudes towards both human tellers and automated banking in mediating the ease of banking factor/perceived satisfaction linkage. The model’s explicit consideration of the effects of bank customer attitudes towards human tellers and automation provides additional explanatory power regarding how the perceived trend towards ease of banking influences bank customer overall satisfaction, switching and loyalty behaviour. A linear structural relations methodological approach is used for the modelling process.

Measuring cross cultural service quality: a framework for assessment

The trend towards internationalisation in many service industries has increased the need for both managers and academics to collect cross‐cultural/national consumer‐perceived service quality data. Failure to establish cross‐cultural equivalence and to detect differences in cross‐national response bias will, however, affect data comparability, may invalidate the research results and could therefore lead to incorrect inferences about attitudes and behaviours across national groups. By initially focussing on developments in the mono‐cultural service quality literature, a framework is presented whereby academics and managers can assess the potential impact of these international measurement issues. Existing cross‐cultural service quality literature is reviewed and the extent to which these issues are addressed is highlighted. Methods for detecting and correcting cross‐national response biases are discussed.

New service development: a stakeholder perspective

Purpose – To increase understanding of both the process of new service development (NSD) and the nature of services as delivered to customers.Design/methodology/approach – Four qualitative, exploratory case studies encompassing public (health) and private (financial) sector service organisations.Findings – Managers select stakeholder groups for involvement in NSD attributing stakeholder salience, centrality to the process and power to influence the final service design. Customers are “dormant” stakeholders, thought to lack the knowledge/experience to contribute meaningfully to NSD. Their interests and needs are channelled through other stakeholders.Research limitations/implications – The research is confined to two service industries based on a key informant approach; thus generalisability to other industries may be limited.Practical implications – Multiple stakeholder involvement places a growing emphasis on the need for NSD managers to be skilled in managing complex, multi‐layered and multi‐faceted proc...

Service Quality: Relationships between Banks and their Small Business Clients

The UK clearing banks are aiming to gain a differential advantage by improving the quality of their service. Some of the findings of a research study which explored the determinants of service quality as perceived by a sample of 50 small businesses are reported. Small business′ overall rating of the level of service received from their bank, their reasons for that rating and their assessment of the importance of 55 service factors are described.

Customer Care in Financial Service Organisations

Findings are presented from an investigation of customer care in major UK organisations in the financial services sector, to include banks, building societies and insurance companies. Attention was focused on the need for customer care and service quality, and the development, implementation and evaluation of customer care/service programmes, as well as associated staff and management training activities.

Using consumer benchmarking criteria to improve service sector competitiveness

The adoption of benchmarking techniques has increased over recent years, yet service organisations have been relatively reluctant to adopt the practice. It is widely acknowledged that elements of “service quality” play a key role in the performance and competitiveness of service organisations and thus provide potential benchmarking criteria. Yet perceived service quality must be defined from the consumer’s perspective and, unlike manufacturing organisations, the consumer is involved in the production process. This study examines the potential for the generation and evaluation of consumer focused benchmarking criteria. Consumers of three service sectors – health (family planning); education/professional (accountancy training) and retail (supermarkets) completed measurement scales relating to potentially deterministic attributes and assessed these for current and previous suppliers. The findings indicate that, although management must be aware of a number of potential problems and issues, information derived from consumers can provide a valuable input into a comprehensive external benchmarking programme involving both competitive and generic measures.

Affect and cognition as predictors of behavioral intentions towards services

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine alternative approaches to measuring service evaluation across cultures. This paper aims to assess: differences between cognitive and affective measures and their ability to predict behavioral intentions and the impact of service features on these measures.Design/methodology/approach – A self‐completion survey of African (East/West), Chinese, and English higher education students includes service quality, satisfaction, affect (emotions/feelings), and behavioral intentions scales relating to retail banking.Findings – For all groups, overall quality, satisfaction, and positive affect predict behavioral intentions. Negative affect is significant for English consumers. Differences across cultures are identified in the determinants of service evaluation, for example, assurance and responsiveness, but these are antecedents of affect and not of overall service quality or satisfaction.Research limitations/implications – The sample is drawn from cultural groups (bas...

Assessing the Impact of Response Styles on Cross-Cultural Service Quality Evaluation: A Simplified Approach to Eliminating the Problem

With the proliferation of comparative research, it is important to recognize some of the inherent limitations of cross-cultural measurement. This article examines the impact of response styles on substantive conclusions of cross-cultural service quality research. The authors use relatively simple analysis methods in conditions where more sophisticated approaches are unlikely to be robust. They demonstrate how analysis of covariance and partial regression can be used to assess both differences in mean scores and differences in relationships. Their results demonstrate that conclusions drawn from analysis that ignores the potential impact of response styles differ from those drawn when response styles are considered. For researchers, their findings imply that attempts to understand and explain cultural differences in service quality expectations, and relationships between perceptions and overall quality assessments, may be impeded by the presence of response styles. A further impact relates to the assessment of “gaps” or a “zone of tolerance” in service quality evaluation. For managers, their conclusions have implications relating to the use of research findings as a basis for market segmentation, service design, staff training, and other resource allocation decisions. In particular, the authors question the use of such research as a basis for comparative service evaluation across cultures.

A cross-cultural perspective on the role of emotion in negative service encounters

The purpose of this research is to examine cross-cultural differences in emotional responses to negative service encounters and the consequent impact on behavioural intentions. Focus groups of UK and West African consumers discussed two video scenarios, described employee and consumer behaviour, and projected emotional responses. Although anger was a major emotion, African consumers emphasised feelings of ‘sadness’ (humiliation and embarrassment). Such feelings were more likely to influence switching and other behavioural intentions when attributable to employee behaviour. Differences were also identified in interpretations of employee behaviour and perceived attribution of negative emotions.

The Impact of Scale. Characteristics on the Dimensionality of the Service Quality Construct

Many studies focusing on the dimensionality of the service quality construct have adopted frameworks developed within the marketing literature. This study, involving interviews with 200 repeat attenders at a specialist family planning clinic, suggests that earlier frameworks developed by patient satisfaction researchers go further in explaining the resu1ts of factor analytical studies. Analyses of data relating to two suppliers illustrate that scale characteristics i.e. scale length and the level of variation introduced into the data, have little impact on a factor structure which distinguishe between two key dimensions of expressive/instrumental qualities and access/convenience.