Developing a model of perceived service quality by individual customers in internet banking services

VI ABSTRACT Substantial developments in the field of information and communication technologies caused incredible transformations in the social structures and the economical activities of most countries in the last quarter of 20th century. With the emergence of the new era of post-industrial society, a phenomenal growth of the services sector in general and the banking sector in particular against the other sectors across the world has been witnessed. Because of the new realities of this customer-led society, the service quality began to be perceived by the commercial banks as an important strategic weapon. The competitive pressures on the banks stemming from the deregulation and the internationalization of the sector and the explosion of Internet usage have fueled the widespread acceptance of the electronic banking practices and especially Internet Banking (IB) among the banks. Thus, the concept of perceived IB service quality has drawn attention of both researchers and practitioners. The main purposes of this study are to develop a perceived IB service quality model and to functionalize this model with a measurement tool. Thus, this study focuses on explaining how IB customers evaluate IB service quality and which specific characteristics of IB customers affect on their service quality perceptions. In this framework, a theoretical research model has been proposed. The sample size has been determined as 334 individual IB customers, actively using their e-mail accounts. The data collection process has been performed through an interactive questioner, kept accessible for research participants via Internet during the entire data collection period. Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Structural Equation Modeling, Stepwise Regression Analysis and ANOVA were applied to examine the casual ordering in the research model by using data collected from 104 individual IB customers. The results suggest that the structure of the perceived IB service quality is hierarchical. In this structure, web site design quality, system quality, outcome quality and customer relations quality are the main dimensions of perceived IB service quality by customers. The sub-dimensions of perceived IB service quality are ease of use, interaction, site content, appearance of site, accessibility, security/privacy, reaction time, flexibility, correctness of transaction, fulfillment the service provisions, consumer service, personalization and frequent user advantages. Finally, the results clearly highlight that there is not any main effect of customer's characteristics on the perceived overall service quality.