Does Employee Service Quality Drive Customer Satisfaction in the Banking Industry? Insights from Ecobank Plc?

Abstract

Abstract Bridging employee service gaps by establishing employee service quality as a standard towards guaranteeing customer satisfaction has attracted serious attention in the banking industry. Nowadays, the quantum of complaints lodged by bank customers about the quality of service provided to them by frontline employees is overwhelming. However, the effect of service quality on customer satisfaction in Ecobank Plc was investigated in this study. The specific objectives were to examine the effect of employeeservice reliability on customer satisfaction in Ecobank, to determine the effect of employeeservice assurance on customer satisfaction, and to assess the effect of employee service responsiveness on customer satisfaction.The population of the study comprises Ecobank customers in Enugu metropolis. This population is non-finite, and in determining the sample size, Cochran’s formula was used, resulting in 384. The convenience sampling technique was used in selecting the respondents. However, questionnaire was used as the research instrument and in validating it, a pilot survey was conducted using 25 copies of the questionnaire.In testing for reliability, a Cronbach’s Alpha was used and 0.950 was obtained. In addition, the survey method was adopted and copies of structured questionnaires were selfadministered to 384 respondents who returned 300 accurately filled copies that wereused toanalyze data. The findings revealed that each of employeeservice reliability,employee service assurance, and employee service responsiveness has a significant positive effect on customer satisfaction in Ecobank Plc. It is advocated that Ecobank’s corporate culture should focus on offering adequate staff training to improve service quality delivery and customer satisfaction.