The rapid growth of national economy, urbanization and wide application of information technology in China has been accompanied with the galloping increase in the number of computers and Internet users. For the last several years, it is particularly s...
The rapid growth of national economy, urbanization and wide application of information technology in China has been accompanied with the galloping increase in the number of computers and Internet users. For the last several years, it is particularly significant to note that innovative progress has been made in Chinese banking business by bringing focus into Internet banking which has developed relatively speedily with marked results. In reality, it may be impossible to imagine improved competitiveness of the Chinese banking industry without activated Internet banking since it is one of the vital forces that can control satisfaction and loyalty of clients. In this regard, it is deemed meaningful to investigate relative weight of various service quality factors connected with Internet banking.
An attempt is thus made in this paper to conduct an empirical study based on theoretical studies to determine and analyze the factors comprizing service quality of Internet banking and affecting satisfaction as well as loyalty of clients. For the purpose of empirical study, a study model was designed on the basis of the collected data and 14 hypotheses were derived from the model.
In this connection, reference was made to the literature, academic journals and advanced studies which dealt with such factors as service quality of Internet banking, clients' satisfaction and their loyalty in addition to empirical analyses. Frequency, reliability and factor analyses were employed to verify the validity and reliability of measurement variables used in this paper. In order to examine the verified hypotheses of the study model, regression analysis was performed additionally.
From the above-described way of study, following conclusions could be drawn:
First, it was confirmed that the preceding studies on the Internet banking had used unstandardized factors to measure service quality. This is why the present study made attempt to derive factors for service quality by referring to the SERVQUAL Model developed by Parasuraman, et. al. (1988) which was verified through lots of studies home and abroad. As a result, the service quality could be classified into 5 dimensions (typicality, reliability, responsiveness, certainty, and consensual).
Second, a regression analysis of the effects on the Internet banking service quality and clients' satisfaction revealed that typicality and consensual alone exercised impact upon clients' satisfaction.
Third, from the analysis of the impact of the Internet banking service quality on clients' satisfaction, it was made clear that satisfaction with service and expectation exerted influence on consensual and typicality. Among these two, consensual was a particularly significant factor exercising the heaviest impact, a fact implying that consensual should above all be intensified to this end.
Fourth, with regard to the effects of satisfaction with service and expectation on the loyalty of clients (intent to reuse), it was learned that the factors of satisfaction with service and expectation exercised positive(+) influence to a significant degree. The factor of satisfaction with expectation is, out of the two factors, the most influential one for clients' loyalty (intent to reuse). It is thus suggested to focus first of all on this factor to boost clients' loyalty.
Finally, it became clear from the analysis that Internet operators were mostly concerned with service quality of, and satisfaction and loyalty of clients with Internet banking. The understanding to this relationship seems to be essential to upgrade the Internet banking service quality of Chinese banks.