Measuring Service Quality and Satisfaction in Greek Cooperative Banking: an Exploratory Study

Abstract

A review of the literature has revealed that perceived quality has a direct and positive impact on overall customer satisfaction. It has also been made clear that the number and nature of underlying service quality determinants are contingent both upon country- and businessspecific considerations. In this context, and in order to identify the major determinants affecting customer satisfaction deriving from service delivery in a large cooperative bank in Greece, the present study attempts to develop a customized scale to measure service quality. Accordingly, based on relevant research findings and the views of both the customers and executives of the researched bank, a preliminary 38-item scale was developed and the corpus of data was collected from a sample comprised of this large cooperative bank’s customers in Crete, Greece. The combination of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, following a scale purification process, which resulted in a reduced 21-item scale, has yielded seven determinants: Communication for Building up Trust, Personnel Relationship, Quality-Price Relationship, Understanding and Consulting, Bank Set of Values, Serviceability, and Educational Support. The results of regression analysis indicated that customer satisfaction with the cooperative bank is mostly affected by: Bank Set of Values, Quality-Price relationship, Understanding and Consulting, and Communication for Building up Trust.