Academic literature on the topic 'Banks and banking - Customer services - Mauritius'

<p> Customers&rsquo; use of digital banking has reshaped traditional banking, and senior level bank executives must know how to leverage this innovation to improve customer service to increase profitability. Using the technology acceptance model as the conceptual framework, the purpose of this multiple case study was to explore effective digital banking strategies that senior level executives used to improve customer service to increase profitability. The target population for this study included senior-level executives from 3 banks in Mauritius possessing successful development and implementation experience in digital banking strategies to improve customer service. Data were collected through semistructured interviews and organizational documents, which were analyzed in accordance with Yin&rsquo;s 5-phase data analysis process consisting of pattern matching, explanation building, time-series analysis, program logic models, and cross-case synthesis. The use of member checking and methodological triangulation increased the trustworthiness of data interpretations. Three themes emerged from the analysis of data: use of mobile strategies to migrate customers to digital banking, challenges to migrate customers to digital banking, and digital banking innovation. The implications of this study for positive social change include improving convenience to customers; promoting green banking; and providing easy access to banking to the poor, those with physical disabilities, and those living in remote and rural areas. </p><p>

Digital banking through telephone, internet and mobile is becoming important for banks’ service marketing, especially with the increase in digital device usage and customer demand for financial services. The changing dynamics of banking means that banks’ performance is no longer solely dependent on branch sales. Capturing and retaining customers are vital for banks, and digital banking is becoming the tool of choice; however research on how it affects customer experience and UK banks’ performance is still limited. This thesis focusses on determining the impact of digital banking services on customer experience and financial performance. The research in the thesis uses a mixed methods approach, utilising bank financial reports, interviews and questionnaires to achieve important results and contribute to knowledge in practice, and in related services, marketing and e-commerce theories. The research adopted Regression, Structural Equation Modelling and Chi-Square analyses in quantitative research, while using Content Analysis in qualitative research. The research takes a broad approach in the investigation of digital banking, customer experience and bank financial performance. It has used qualitative and quantitative analysis techniques to produce, test and triangulate results to increase robustness. The research demonstrates how digital banking enhances banks’ profitability. It found that attributes such as perceived value, convenience, functional quality, service quality and digital banking innovation are important in improving customer experience, satisfaction and loyalty, and banks’ financial performance. The insights from the three research perspectives have been integrated to develop a new Digital Banking Services, Customer Experience and Financial Performance Enhancement Framework (DiBCEFPEF). The results from the thesis have the potential to assist banks in the provision of services, and improve customer experience and financial performance, such as profitable growth and economic value-adds, through digital banking.

Thesis (MTech (Business Administration))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2006<br>This study aims to explore the impact of self-service technologies (SSTs) on the behaviour of Chinese banking customers. The research has two purposes: (l) To determine how perceived risk impacts on the use of SSTs for customers with a high and a low technology readiness index (TRI) and (2) To understand the types of perceived risks within the banking industry and which component of risk dominates customer's propensity to use SSTs. The research focuses on the retail bank SSTs services for the reason that the banking industry has the longest development history in SSTs. The research was conducted using a questionnaire containing two service scenarios (bank information search, fund/money transfer) and was distributed to 372 bank customers, of which a valid sample of 307 respondents was analyzed. The test results indicate the effect of perceived risk does exist. High perceived risk influences high TRI customers to lower their propensity to use the SSTs in the funds transfer and money transfer service scenario, whereas customers with low TRI will tend to lower their propensity to use SSTs in the funds transfer, money transfer and other services. Psychological risk was also identified as the dominant influential risk factor among the respondents. The results support the research hypotheses and highlight the importance for companies to manage perceived risk in this technological era.

The purpose of this study is to gather information for the management of the Bank of Ayudhya to improve its internet banking service. It explored customer satisfaction, customer attitudes, and the correlation between the frequency of Internet banking usage and customer demographic data.

Thesis (MTech(Business Administration)--Cape Technikon, Cape Town, 2001<br>During the last decade, commercial banking competition has intensified for a variety of reasons. With shareholders requirements to satisfY and, at the same time to provide ''value for money" to i!s clients, banks restructured themselves to serve niche market segments, increase critical mass by growing volume business or a combination of both. With the change in political dispensation, the urgency for banks to evolve intensified for the following prime reasons: I. The increased number offoreign banks ~ntering the South African market and cherry-picking the commercial banks' best clients and employees. This was facilitated by the foreign banks low cost of entry and low overhead cost structure coupled with cheaper availability of offshore funding for South African businesses. 2. Increased emigration rates reducin6 the availability ofskilled and trained bank employees. 3. The stagnation ofthe economic emironment resulting in low organic growth of the business client base from the traditional white o\\ned segment. 4. The largely neglected black business segment which became politically. if not economically. attractive to the local banks. Against this background. commercial ban:,s strategies changed involving restructuring the internal organisation to refocus the banking industr.. efforts in achieving its profit objectives. satisfYing and keeping its clients and attracting new clients. primarily, from the local competitor banks.

Despite the extensive research undertaken in the subject area of services marketing, much is still unknown to service providers of specific services in terms of firm-client relationships and how customer retention rates can be increased. This study attempts to address this limitation. The study revolves around the relationship marketing and customer retention of banks in South Africa, Canada and the United Kingdom (UK). Service firms, including banks, are vitally important to the economy of any country as they contribute to its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (for example a 74 percent contribution in South Africa) and its employment rate. However, to survive in a complex, competitive business environment, service firms are required to focus on their clients’ needs. Banks can focus on their relationships with clients and measure their institutions’ success by considering their customer retention rates. When considering firm-client relationships and customer retention rates, it is important to gather and link the viewpoints of both clients and managers in order to ensure that firms perform according to clients’ needs. In order to establish the influence of selected variables on the relationship marketing and customer retention of banks, from the perspectives of both banking clients and managers, an empirical investigation was conducted. The primary aim of this study was to quantify significant relationships among selected variables; therefore the positivistic research paradigm was used. In addition, in designing the measuring instruments for the empirical investigation, the phenomenological paradigm was used. Thus, in order to use multiple sources of data, the strategy of methodological triangulation was adopted for this study. The samples consisted of banking clients and bank managers in South Africa, Canada and the UK. The empirical investigation conducted among banking clients revealed that significant positive relationships exist between six of the seven identified independent variables, namely communication, personalisation, empowerment, ethics, fees and technology, and banks’ relationship marketing. These relationships imply that, according to banking clients, if each of these aspects in banks improves, bank-client relationships would improve. The empirical investigation conducted among bank managers showed that managers only regard communication and fees as influencers of relationship marketing in banks. This result clearly indicated a difference in the viewpoints of banking clients and bank managers. In addition, the empirical investigation revealed that relationship marketing positively influences the customer retention of banks. This relationship implies that if a bank successfully maintains relationships with its clients, the bank’s customer retention rates will increase. Additionally, the empirical investigation revealed that the population group, education level and country of residence of banking client respondents exerted an influence on the perceptions clients have regarding banks’ relationship marketing and customer retention levels. If banking clients are African or are not educated with a qualification beyond secondary school level or are from Canada, they consider the relationship marketing of a bank to be more important and are more likely to be retained by banks. Generally, the study indicated that Canadian banking clients are more positive regarding the empowerment strategies and personalisation efforts of Canadian banks than South Africans are about those of South African banks. In addition, banking clients in the UK are more satisfied with the communication, fees and use of technology of UK banks than South Africans are about these aspects in South African banks. The study indicated that strategies to improve banks’ communication, personalisation, empowerment, ethics, fees and technology should be implemented by banks in ways to positively influence their relationship marketing and ultimately their customer retention. Strategies relating to each of these areas, successfully implemented by banks in Canada and the UK, are recommended to South African banks. In effect, these strategies will contribute to retail banks’ success, the competiveness in the banking industry, banking client benefits as well as the economic stability and prosperity of South Africa.

This study investigates the relationship of bank customers’ behavioural patterns based on the customers past transactions, with respect to their profile characteristics. The main aim of this study is to illustrate that different categories of customers (based on demographical variables such as race, gender and age) have statistically significant differences in behaviour, with respect to how they operate their accounts. A theoretical overview on the literature of customer relationship management in the banking sector emphasises the importance of understanding customers to ensure that a business is successful. Four null-hypotheses where formulated based on a general research hypothesis. The data base provided a major South African bank is used to achieve the objectives. Extensive cleaning of the data set was necessary to ensure the validity of the results. The data set had 7860 customer keys. The large data base used contributed to the reliability of the results. The following behavioural variables were used in the study namely, transaction data, average debit and credit transaction amounts and average number of transactions per month. The main results of study indicate that different customer categories have statistically significant differences in behaviour, with respect to how customers operate their accounts. This implies that it is important for the banking sector to consider customer gender differences, age differences and race group differences in the relationship strategies which they employ in their multicultural environment. Further research in the area may be necessary before generalisation can be made on all banking customers.

The following is a case study report on the Cape Town business unit of Standard Bank Properties. The research project falls within the ambit of services marketing which introduces several unique management challenges for service businesses that sell services as a core offering. The principal aim of the case study is to gain an understanding of why customers bank at the business unit and to discover what aspects are critical to customer satisfaction. A further goal of the research is to examine how the business unit could improve customer satisfaction and to highlight any impediments to further improving customer satisfaction at the business unit. It is generally regarded that quality customer service is essential to building customer relationships and hence the research project emphasis on services marketing and customer satisfaction within a financial services context. The paper commences with an overview of the South African Banking Sector and its unique challenges such as the Financial Service Charter and newly introduced legislation such as Financial Intelligence Centre Act. The case study will specifically investigate the property finance industry and a detailed analysis of the business unit's operations and process flow will also be undertaken. The reason for this background information is to assist the reader to understand how the business unit operates. The research project will investigate four unique differences between goods marketing and services marketing whereafter three theoretical propositions are introduced, namely the dyadic interaction and service encounter, the Service Profit Chain and finally Relationship Marketing. Evidence in the form of a narrative will be led from insights obtained from interviews conducted with customers and staff at the business unit against these propositions with support (or otherwise) from independent surveys and documents from the business unit. The result of this analysis is the identification of several areas of concern specifically: New employees and the service encounter, Problems with FICA, Lack of a customer complaint handling system, Empowerment issues, Turnaround times, Reliance on key staff These insights together with the evidence from the literature review will be analysed and several recommendations made to improve customer service and ultimately customer satisfaction at the business unit. Several recommendations for further research are offered as well as the identification of limitations including but not limited to the specificity of the case study report.