The Impact of Service Quality on Customer Loyalty: A Study of Banks in Penang, Malaysia

摘要

The emergence of new forms of banking channels such as Internet banking, Automated Teller Machines (ATM), phone banking and also maturing financial market and global competition have forced bankers to explore the importance of customer loyalty. Therefore, studies need to focus on the changing role of the banking system and its dynamic financial market. The underlying model of SERVQUAL (Parasuraman et al., 1988) with five dimensions was used by this research to evaluate the impact of service quality on customer loyalty among bank customers in Penang, Malaysia with customer satisfaction mediating these variables. The findings show that improvement in service quality can enhance customer loyalty. The service quality dimensions that play a significant role in this equation are reliability, empathy, and assurance. The findings indicate that the overall respondents evaluate the bank positively, but still there are rooms for improvements.