The Study of the Effects of E-banking Services Quality on Customers ’ Satisfaction and Loyalty ( Case Study : Agricultural Bank of Khuzestan Province )

Today, the increasing progress in technology make the service companies like banks provide ebanking services or online banking in order to access the competitive advantage and dedicate much market share for themselves. Because of it crucial role in increasing the organizational profitability and customers’ satisfaction and loyalty, the quality of e-banking services is of great importance in e-banking studies. Therefore, the present study attempts to cast light upon the effects of e-banking service quality on customers’ satisfaction and loyalty in Agricultural Bank of Khuzestan Province (Iran). The statistical population is all of the customers of Agricultural Bank of Khuzestan among which 385 of them were selected for the sample study. The research period is from March-April until May-June 2015. The library and field methods were used for the data collection. This study is of applied and causal-descriptive research and is specifically based on Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). At first, by using the descriptive statistics, the demographic conditions of respondents were determined. Afterwards, by the statistical inference, the hypotheses of the study were investigated. For the statistical analysis, LISREL 8.8 and SPSS Software17 were used. To verify or not to verify the relations between the variables, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was used. By and large, the results show that the quality of e-banking services has a direct and positive effects on customers’ satisfaction and loyalty. Introduction The Study of the Effects of E-banking Services Quality on Customers’ Satisfaction and Loyalty (Case Study: Agricultural Bank of Khuzestan Province) During recent decades, the financial services was affected by the radical changes which eventuated in a market with intense competition and little growth in initial demand. In this competitive condition, the information technology is used for providing banking services to the customers in a vast scale. In fact, regarding the information technology growth, especially internet, banking processes have changed from person to person transactions in services into transaction with technology (Bitner, 2000) and traditional banking has been replaced by technology-based banking (including ATM machine, e-banking and telephone banking). As a result, customers’ transaction has changed from face to face transaction into technology transaction. Because of the changing behavior of consumers due to the increasing use of e-banking services, it is necessary for the banks to increase and improve the quality of online services to provide consumers satisfaction. Because of the complex, dynamic and competitive environment of banking along with the increasing demand of customers, the smallest difference in online services leads to the great industry transference (Beerli et al., 2005). But the main problem is that some of the customers are dissatisfied due to the quality of e-banking services (Ganguli, S. & Roy, S.K. (2010). This issue has produced a big challenge for the bank managers to access customers’ satisfaction and loyalty which is very important for firm performances (Hallowell, , 1996). Therefore, considering the key factors influencing on customers’ satisfaction and loyalty by regarding the usage of e-banking is important. Due to the fact that the role of services quality was proved as a strong predictor for satisfaction and royalty (Kassim, N., & Abdullah, N. A. 2010), thus the importance of studying customers’ perception in related to services quality in E-banking is increased. J. Curr. Res. Sci. Vol., S (1), 375-381, 2016 376 Conducting studies about understanding the customers’ perception related to the quality of e-banking services have always been overlooked. Although there are a few studies about the quality of services, customers’ satisfaction and loyalty in Iran (Gilaniniya and Mosaviyan 2009, Yaghobi and Shakeri, 2008), but the relationship between dimensions of e-banking quality and customers’ satisfaction and loyalty have always been ignored. The effects of e-banking can improve the customers’ satisfaction and loyalty and this matter provides invaluable insight for the managers to focus on those services which are of great importance. In this applied study, the relationship between the influential factors and variables on customers such as their satisfaction, quality of services of online banking were taken into account. Furthermore, the effects of e-banking services quality on customers’ satisfaction and loyalty in Agricultural Bank of Khuzestan is also treated. Conceptual Framework and Literature Review The researchers attempted to identify the dimensions of technology-based services. Parasuraman et al., (2005) developed a measure for evaluating the e-banking quality so-called E-S-QUAL. This measure has four dimensions of usefulness, performance, security and system access. Van Riel et al., (2001) identified the dimensions of auxiliary mediator, main services and auxiliary services as main the dimensions of technology-based services quality in business and internetbased works. Moreover, Ganguli, S. & Roy, S. K. (2010) provided four dimensions of technology security and information quality, availability, reliability and customers’ services as the dimensions of technology-based services quality. Parasuraman et al., (2005) also developed a measure for improving e-services quality (E-Kesk-Qual) which includes accountability, compensation (reward) and interaction. Ease of use, relationship, content, confidence, customization and reputation are the other aspects that were identified for measuring the quality of technology-based services. In several studies the relationship between the customers’ satisfaction and loyalty were taken into account e.g. Andreassen, T.W. and Lindestad, B. (1998). The effects of the quality dimensions on the customers’ satisfaction and loyalty were studied as well by Ndubisi, N.O. and Wah, C.K. (2005), Krepapa et al., (2003), Ganguli, S. & Roy (2010). The review of literature shows that the services quality in e-banking refer to security and customization, user satisfaction, no error, on time, ease of use, accuracy and fast performance, on time and exact accountability. In general the model and structure of this research is based on marketing studies. Figure1. The Proposed Model Services Quality and its Concept in E-banking Quality of services is an important factor for the customization and increased productivity and is influenced by customers’ satisfaction and loyalty. Numerous studies have been conducted on the concept of services quality (Gronroos, 1982; Parasurman, 1988). Some of them such as Bolton & Drew, J. H. (1991); Parasurman, (1988) believed that the services quality concept is a vague concept and in spite of many discussions about it, achieving the comprehensive definition for services quality is difficult. However, they acknowledge that services quality is a dynamic and multidimensional concept and is a combination of past and present shopping experiences. It seems that there is an agreement between them indicating that services quality is an attitude about overall judgment on services superiority. Lewis, R. C. , & Booms, B. H. (1983) defined services quality as a measure of compatibility in different levels of services with customer expectations. Parasurman (1985) defined services quality as stable compatibility with customer expectations and understanding of the customer expectations of special services. Moreover, Gronroos (2000) defined it as a measure and disagreement between customer perceptions of services and his/her expectations. So it can be said that services quality is defined as the consequence of effectsive measures of the service sector and occurred when customers obtained services beyond their expectations (Parasurman et al., 1988). E-banking services quality