Assessing customer service quality in banking by an alternative service provider: An African perpective

Abstract

Achieving service quality has been the goal of many organisations over the past decade. ln recent times, the postal business across the world has experienced a sharp decline in the volume of mail due to more efficient alternative channels of communication. The dwindling volumes of mail have made it necessary for public postal operators to diversify into financial services as one way of generating more revenue. However, the influx of many players into the financial service industry has raised the standard of service quality as a tool for business growth and sustainability and as a result, there is no room for mediocre perfom1ance. This paper examines customer perceptions of service quality in the Malawian public postal service. A survey comprising a sample of 400 financial services customers was conducted using the SERVPERF model as the measuring instrument. The results show that customer perceptions of the service quality dimensions are satisfactory. There were significant differences between education level and the perceptions of tangibles and reliability and between region and the perception of tangibles. There were no significant differences between gender, age and occupation and the perception of empathy, tangibles, assurance, reliability and responsiveness. Recommendations are proposed on how the public postal operator can improve service quality among its financial services customers. This study can prove useful as a basis for comparison of customer service quality by altemative providers of banking services in other under-developed countries.