Customer satisfaction on savings service at maritime bank long bien branch

NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY

NEU BUSINESS SCHOOL

----------------

NGUYEN DUC ANH

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION ON

SAVINGS SERVICE

AT MARITIME BANK - LONG BIEN

BRANCH

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

THESIS

Supervisor: Dr. TRAN VAN HUNG

HA NOI - 2019

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First of all, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Professor

Tran Van Hung, for his supervision, valuable suggestions and advices throughout my

thesis.

I am also very thankful to my family: Mum, Dad and little sister for always supporting

and trusting me all over my study.

I am grateful to friends who have supported me and helped me a lot.

Thank you all very much.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT........................................................................................2

TABLE OF CONTENTS..........................................................................................3

LISTS OF TABLES..................................................................................................5

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.......................................................................................6

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION..........................................................................8

1.1. Rationale.............................................................................................................8

1.2. Research objectives...........................................................................................10

1.3. Research questions...........................................................................................10

1.4. Theoretical framework.....................................................................................10

1.5. Research scope..................................................................................................11

1.6. Research methodology......................................................................................12

1.7. Research structure............................................................................................16

CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ON CUSTOMER

SATISFACTION...................................................................................................17

2.1. Customer satisfaction.......................................................................................17

2.2. The SERVQUAL model to measure customer satisfaction..............................20

2.3. Saving service and customer satisfaction on saving service..............................22

2.4 Proposed model to measure customer satisfaction on savings service...............25

CHAPTER 3: CURRENT SITUATION OF MARITIME BANK – LONG

BIEN BRANCH’S CUSTOMER SATISFACTION ON SAVING SERVICE. 28

3.1 Overview of Maritime Bank..............................................................................28

3.2 Demographic analysis........................................................................................43

3.3 Reliabllility Testing (Cronbach’s Alpha)...........................................................55

3.4 Regression analysis to measure relationship between customer satisfaction with

its dimensions at Maritime Bank – Long Bien Branch...........................................61

CHAPTER 4: RECOMMENDATIONS TO IMPROVE CUSTOMER

SATISFACTION AT MARITIME BANK - LONG BIEN BRANCH..............65

4.1 The development trend of Vietnam prosperity Joint-stock Commercial Bank.65

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Overview on MSB Strategy.............................................................................65

4.2 Solutions to enhance customer satisfaction:.......................................................67

4.3 Recommendations for Headquarter of Vietnam Prosperity Commercial Bank

.................................................................................................................................77

CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................79

REFERENCE.........................................................................................................80

APPENDIX.............................................................................................................83

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LISTS OF TABLES

Table 1 - Table 3.1: MSB’s saving services........................................................................33

Table 2 - Table 3.2: Online saving’s features......................................................................39

Table 3 - Table 3.3: Descriptive statistic for group Reliability............................................46

Table 4 - Table 3.4: Descriptive statistic for group Responsiveness...................................48

Table 5 - Table 3.5: Descriptive statistic for group Assurance............................................49

Table 6 - Table 3.6: Descriptive statistic for group Access.................................................51

Table 7 - Table 3.7: Descriptive statistic for group Empathy..............................................52

Table 8 - Table 3.8: Descriptive statistic for group Tangibles.............................................53

Table 9 - Table 3.9: Descriptive statistic for group Competitiveness..................................54

Table 10 - Table 3.10: Descriptive statistic for group Customer satisfaction......................55

Table 11 - Table 3.11: Cronbach’s Alpha value..................................................................55

Table 12 - Table 3.12: Cronbach’s Alpha test results for Reliability..................................56

Table 13 - Table 3.13: Cronbach’s Alpha test results for Responsiveness..........................57

Table 14 - Table 3.14: Cronbach’s Alpha test results for Assurance...................................57

Table 15 - Table 3.15: Cronbach’s Alpha test results for Access........................................58

Table 16 - Table 3.16: Cronbach’s Alpha test results for Empathy.....................................59

Table 17 -Table 3.17: Cronbach’s Alpha test results for Tangibles.....................................59

Table 18 - Table 3.18: Cronbach’s Alpha test results for Competitiveness.........................60

Table 19 - Table 3.19: Cronbach’s Alpha test results for Customer Satisfaction................60

Table 20 - Table 3.20: Results of Multiple Regression Analysis........................................63

Table 21 - Table 3.21: Hypotheses testing of significant impact between the variables.....64

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The excellence of saving services is the key factor in achieving customers’ satisfaction,

which is the fundamental goal of some business organizations, since it helps the banks to

retain the customers. The beneficial saving services are especially essential in the context

of banking services as the higher the level of customers’ satisfaction is, the better

competitiveness of the bank becomes. Customer satisfaction is believed to improve bank’s

profitability, hence leads to the sustainable development. However, researches on customer

satisfaction in retail banking in general and for a commercial bank like Maritime Bank are

still scarce. By realizing such ultimate importance of customer satisfaction for a bank and

identifying the research gap, as an employee of Maritime Bank – Long Bien Branch, the

author would like to conduct a research on customer satisfaction on saving service of the

Bank.

The research looks into the connection between saving services and customers’ satisfaction

by means of the SERVQUAL model. In addition, the model applied in this thesis is

deviated from the original SERVQUAL model by adding two more dimensions of the

saving service in order to get the most appropriate customer satisfaction model for retail

banking sector. Thus, in the research, saving service’s dimensions including Reliability,

Responsiveness, Assurance, Access, Empathy, Tangibles and Competitiveness are labeled

as independent variables, and customers’ satisfaction is called dependent variable. The

main objectives of the thesis are to pinpoint specific saving services that have an impact on

customers’ satisfaction at Vietnam Maritime Commercial Joint Stock Bank, to assess the

influence of saving services on customers’ satisfaction at Long Bien branch and lastly, to

suggest some feasible recommendations in order to enhance the customers’ satisfaction of

the bank.

With the sole purpose of this research, 195 customers were randomly selected and the

primary data was gathered through an administratively structured questionnaire filled out

by previously selected customers and through in-depth interviews. Then, the collected data

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was further analyzed by SPSS. The finding of the study shows that there is a significantly

positive impact of all 7 dimensions of the saving service on the customers’ satisfaction.

From multiple regression, this study proves that all of the hypotheses are accepted and that

Tangibles have the greatest influence on the final overall satisfaction level of customers of

Long Bien branch, followed closely by Competitiveness, Reliability, Access,

Responsiveness, Assurance and Empathy.

Hence, in order to enhance the customer satisfaction, the Bank should focus on improving

all 7 dimensions of the offered saving services. Also, keeping the various saving services

in commercial banks would ensure a high level of customers’ satisfaction, whereas a lack

of saving services would cause a fall in customers’ satisfaction, which ultimately leads to a

decline in the number of customers. In addition, in accordance with the shortcomings and

the development orientation of Vietnam Maritime Commercial Joint Stock Bank, this

thesis lastly recommends some solutions so as to enhance the customer satisfaction for the

Bank, namely:

 Setting up a customer information database

 Enhance the quality of the staff working at the Bank

 Enhance the communication skills of banking tellers who are directly in contact

with customers

 Applying up-to-date banking technology

 Applying CRM model to improve saving services’ quality

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1. Rationale

In today’s era of intense business competition, companies need to differentiate from

their competitors by offering superior products and services. The higher the service

quality delivered to customer, the better the standing of the company compared to its

competitors. It is pointed out that high service quality is positively associated with high

customer satisfaction, which in turn would bring more loyal customers to the firm

(Nesrin Ozatac et al., 2016). This is especially true for the Banking sector where

financial liberalisation and bank deregulation have caused a rapid growth and have

benefited customers with various financial services in accordance with their diversified

financial needs. Indeed, many banks are focusing their efforts on boosting customer

satisfaction and customer loyalty by improving their service quality (Terrence

Levesque, Gordon H.G. McDougall, 1996), since customer satisfaction is an essential

factor to sustain a bank’s competitive advantages. As argued by Zeithaml and Bitner

(2002), high service quality leads to customer satisfaction and customer retention that is

known to be more cost-saving than high levels of customer turnover in the long-term.

Yet, long-term customers have a tendency to buy larger volumes and higher price

premium products and services. Thus, customer satisfaction and customer retention are

highly related to a bank’s high level of profitability. It is pointed out by Reichheld and

Sasser (1990) that a retail bank, which raises its customer retention level by 5 percent,

had its profits increasing by 85 percent. As a result, studying customer satisfaction

would be an essential work for researchers and bankers in order to improve banks’

profitability and competitiveness, which lead to banking industry’s sustainable

development.

The very first study on customer satisfaction is carried out in the 1980s. Customer

satisfaction and service quality has been the subject of significant interest by researchers

and practitioners for the last 3 decades, started by the original work of Parasuraman et

al. in 1985. A remarkable reason for such interest in these two subjects is brought about

by the belief that the bottom-line performance of the firm will be improved by this.

There are lots of diccusions and controversy over the antecedants and outcomes of

customer satisfaction. Considerable theoretical structures have been created to analysse

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the antecedents of satisfaction and to develop reasonable measures of the subject. The

scholars have come to different conclusions about the relationship between customer

satisfaction and service quality as to whether customer satisfaction is the antecedant of

service quality (Bitner, 1990; Bolton and Drew, 1991) or vice verca service quality is

the antecedant of customer satisfaction (Cronin and Taylor, 1992; Parasuraman et al.,

1985).

Additionally, a lot of research has investigated in identifying the components

(dimensions) of service quality - aspects that consumers assess to form general

judgements about the service quality (Parasuraman et al., 1985, 1988, 1991a, 1993;

Zeithaml et al., 1996; Brown et al., 1993; Cronin and Taylor, 1992; Teas, 1993). The

literature tells us that there is substantial debate as to the core dimensions of service

quality (Brown et al., 1993; Cronin and Taylor, 1992) and the dimensions that might be

distinct versus common across services (Carman, 1990; Cronin and Taylor, 1992; Teas,

1993; Taylor and Baker, 1994).

Studies on customer satisfaction is abundant, however, work that investigates this aspect

specifically in banking sector in general and in retail banking in particular has not

received much attention, especially in Vietnam. Also, the findings are not generalized,

specific and significantly depend on research background and particular context. While

the theory is advocated for service companies as a class, this thesis presents an

empirical analysis for 1 commercial bank, which helps to limit the findings’

generalizability.

Saving services offered by banks are becoming more diversified and has become the

main source of funding for a bank’s operation. However, research into saving service

quality and customer satisfaction of MSB Bank in general and of Long Bien branch in

particular remains only at a low level - conducting survey to know customer’s

feedbacks on their services, which has not brought the expected results. The main

reason is that the customer survey is of very simple content and lack of adequate

methods and accurate tools to measure customer satisfaction in a reasonable way.

As a consequence, I selected the topic "CUSTOMER SATISFACTION ON SAVING

SERVICE AT MARITIME BANK-LONG BIEN BRANCH ". With this research topic,

I would like to help managers to better understand the expectations of customers for the

quality of the Bank’s saving service.

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