Contribution of Customer Service to Customer Retention of Selected Banks of Akim Oda

ABSTRACT

In today’s highly competitive market, it is expected of banks to deliver on promises, a fast and reliable service consistently. Anything shot of good quality service get customers dissatisfied. While dissatisfied customers are less likely to repeat transaction with the service provider, satisfied customers are more likely to repeat transactions and go ahead to share positive word-of-mouth. On this basis, the study sought to examine the perception of customers on service quality, and factors that lead to repeat purchase or customer retention of selected banks of Akim Oda. The research design used for this study is non–experimental research because independent variable could not be controlled by the researcher. The type of nonexperimental research adopted was survey that made use of both quantitative and qualitative methods. The survey aimed at obtaining 160 customers’ expectations and perception of service quality of Ghana Commercial Bank Limited, Barclays Bank Ltd and South Birim Rural Bank Ltd. The service quality scale instrument was the main instrument used, both in the questionnaire and the interview guide. Collected data were analyzed using analytical tools and procedures embedded in the Statistical Package for Social Scientist (SPSS) software and Microsoft excel to create appropriate tables and graphs that answer the research questions. Conclusions drawn are that customers’ perception of service quality of BBL and SBRB exceed their expectation hence, satisfied and are more likely to repeat a transaction. Conversely, GCB's service quality fell short of customers’ expectation. Hence, the customers are dissatisfied with the bank’s service quality offering and are less likely to repeat transaction. It is therefore recommended that GCB should improve their service quality offers to boost customer retention. SBRB and BBL service quality offers generally exceeded customers’ expectation however should not be complacent but continue to even offer better service to their customers