Service quality and customer satisfaction in Ghanaian retail banks: the moderating role of price

Abstract

PurposeVarious models and scales exist in the literature to measure retail bank service quality without any attempt at integrating them and the moderators have often been under explored. The purpose of this paper is to integrate the SERVQUAL and BSQ models and moderated the resulting scale with price in order to examine service quality and customer satisfaction with retail bank services in Ghana.Design/methodology/approachThe study is quantitative and the survey methodology was used to collect data from 560 retail bank customers. The result was analyzed through structural equation modeling.FindingsThe study provides an expanded model for measuring retail bank service quality as seven of the eight latent constructs emerged as service quality dimensions when moderated with price. It is significant to also note that five of the constructs – tangibles, reliability, assurance, empathy and price – from the direct relationship emerged as the dimensions of retail bank service quality that positively and significantly predicted customer satisfaction.Practical implicationsThe study provides insight into customer behavior with the quality of retail bank services in Ghana. The resulting broader dimensions provide an integrated and expanded model as well as pointers to bank managers on service quality and customer satisfaction cues to enable them attract, serve and retain customers.Originality/valueThe study is the first of its kind to integrate two of the popular models to measure retail bank service quality and to use price as a moderator of this relationship. The resulting scale, which comprised of variables from the two models, provides support for the approach used in the current study.