Gregory Elliott

Prediction of attitude and behavioural intentions in retail banking

Purpose – This research seeks to explore the factors predicting customer loyalty in retail banking. Loyalty was measured in terms of a customers willingness to recommend a bank and their intention to remain with their main bank short‐term (in the next six months) and long‐term (from six months to five years).Design/methodology/approach – The study was based on a mail survey of 1,951 individuals. Potential predictors were drawn from the literature and included in three separate regression models to model different types of loyalty.Findings – The results indicate that willingness to recommend is best predicted by affective attitude, overall satisfaction and empathy. Short‐term behavioural intentions, however, were best predicted by overall satisfaction and responsiveness, while long‐term intentions were predicted by overall satisfaction, affective attitude and empathy. The three models explained a substantial amount of the variation in the dependent variables: 71 per cent for willingness to recommend, 43 p...