A comparative study of customer satisfaction on service quality in public and private banks in the Northern Iraq region city of Erbil

One of the most important things that most organizations are care about in today's competitive market is customer satisfaction on the products and services. As today's banking industry is in a competitive environment due to the advancement in technology, they need to improve their services quality and beside providing services to their existing customers, aim to attract new customers as well, as the customers are the main key to a successful business. This study compared and analyzed perceived service quality between two public banks (Zagros and Choli) and two private banks (Cihan and Ish) in the Northern Iraq region city of Erbil, using the SERVQUAL model which has five dimensions of: Tangibility, Reliability, Assurance, Responsiveness and Empathy, to find out the level of customers' satisfaction and the relationship between service quality and customers' satisfaction. Data has been collected through questionnaires with 5 point Likert scale and sample size of 295. Regression results show a positive correlation between perceived service quality and customers' satisfaction in general, while public banks were outperforming their private counterparts. Results also indicate that all SERVQUAL model dimensions have high positive impact on customers' satisfaction in both public and private banks. Keywords: Public Banks, Private Banks, Service Quality, Customer Satisfaction, SERVQUAL.