A study on customer perception on service quality in commercial banks: An empirical study

With the increasing competition in the banking sector particularly after the 1991 financial sector reforms, The Indian baking sector has undergone a metamorphosis particularly after the 1991 banking sector reforms. The Increasing competition not only among the nationalized and traditional private sector banks but from the foreign banks has resulted in considering customer satisfaction as one of the important strategies of the banks. Above all, it has also been realized that the major strategy of withstanding the stiff competition not only to retain the old customers but also to attract the new customers through provision of better services and hence, in recent times provision of better and quality services to customers has become one of the focal points of the service agenda of banks and it is only the quality of the services provided that could help the banks to attract more and more of customers in a competitive banking. However, the common bank customer now-a-days is not fully satisfied with the services rendered by the banks alone. This is because, the human perception changes from time to time and from individual to individual. Hence, this change in perception of a customer of the service he gets makes the job of satisfying him at all point of time more challenging. It is therefore, necessary to for banks to continuously assess and reassess how customers perceive the services, what are the new and emerging customer expectations and how they can be satisfied on an ongoing basis. The present study attempts to analyze the customers’ preference for the quality of services of the private and public sector banks.