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[.]
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 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TABLE OF CONTENTS LISTS OF TABLES EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .6 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 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 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 LISTS OF TABLES Table - Table 3.1: MSB’s saving services 33 Table - Table 3.2: Online saving’s features 39 Table - Table 3.3: Descriptive statistic for group Reliability 46 Table - Table 3.4: Descriptive statistic for group Responsiveness 48 Table - Table 3.5: Descriptive statistic for group Assurance 49 Table - Table 3.6: Descriptive statistic for group Access .51 Table - Table 3.7: Descriptive statistic for group Empathy 52 Table - Table 3.8: Descriptive statistic for group Tangibles 53 Table - 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 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 was further analyzed by SPSS The finding of the study shows that there is a significantly positive impact of all 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 10