Disconfirmation theory customer satisfaction
“The Disconfirmation
Model is focused around the correlation of customers' desires and their
apparent execution evaluations. Particularly, a singular's desires are affirmed
when an item executes of course. It is adversely affirmed when an item performs
more ineffectively than anticipated. The disconfirmation is certain when an
item performs over the desires. There are four develops to depict the customary
disconfirmation standard specified as desires, execution, disconfirmation and
fulfillment." "Fulfillment is considered as a result of procurement
and use, coming about because of the purchasers' examination of expected
compensates and acquired expenses of the buy in connection to the foreseen
results. In operation, fulfillment is by one means or another like demeanor as
it can be assessed as the total of fulfillments with a few gimmicks of
item."
Barclays bank- Disconfirmation theory customer satisfaction
We will
use the theory to analyze one important innovation of banks; e-banking. Our
selected bank is Barclays, which is the premier bank of UK.
One
of the most recent channels of distribution to be used in the financial
services organizations is electronic banking; this method was established in
the mid 1990s, thereafter steadily becoming more important (Allen et al, 2001).
The term electronic banking refers to "the provision of information or
services by a bank to its customers, via a computer or television"(Allen
et al, 2001). A more developed service is one that provides customers with the
opportunity to gain access to their accounts and execute transactions or to buy
product online via the internet (Daniel, 1999). Compatible with the
revolutionary components of the electronic marketplace, Barclays has actively
developed e-banking services since its inception.
This
study examines the factors which contributed and enhances the adoption of
e-banking by the Barclays’s customers, factors that influence disconfirmation,
and the impact of e-banking functionality on the satisfaction outcomes for the
bank’s customers.
Factors of Adopting
e-Banking
Accessibility
defines as the ability of users to access information and services from the web
is dependent on many factors. These include the content format; the user's
hardware, software and settings; internet connections; the environmental
conditions and the user's abilities and disabilities (Godwin-Jones 2001;
Hackett and Parmanto, 2009). The term "web accessibility" generally
relates to the implementation of website content in such a way as to maximize
the ability of users with disabilities to access it. For example, providing a
text equivalent for image content of a web page, allows users with some visual
disabilities access to the information via a screen reader. The techniques and
approaches that create more accessible web pages for people with disabilities
also address many other access issues such as download speed and
discoverability (Godwin-Jones 2001; Hackett et al, 2004; Hackett and Parmanto,
2009).
The
bank found responses, attentiveness, and ease of use had considerable impacts
on both customers perceived overall service quality and satisfaction. So, the
bank has developed its strategies to achieve these goals.
2.
Convenience
E-banking
provides higher degree of convenience that enables customers to access internet
bank at all times and places. Apart from that, the ease of access of computers
is perceived as a measure of relative advantage (Daniel, 1999, Black et al,
2001; Polatoglu and Ekin, 2001; Gerrard and Cunningham, 2003). Johnston (1995)
revealed that there are some service quality determinants that are
predominantly satisfiers and others that are predominantly dissatisfiers with
the main sources of satisfaction being attentiveness, responsiveness, care and
friendliness. The bank found main sources of dissatisfaction are integrity,
reliability, responsiveness, availability and functionality. The bank is using
different techniques to achieve there discrepancies which may occur in the
system.
3.
Privacy
Customers
have doubts about the trust ability of the e-bank's privacy policies (Gerrard
and Cunningham, 2003). Trust has striking influence on user's willingness to
engage in online exchanges of money and personal sensitive information
(Friedman et al, 2000; Wang et al, 2003). Privacy is an important dimension
that may affect users' intention to adopt e-based transaction systems.
Encryption technology is the most common feature of the bank site to secure
information privacy, supplemented by a combination of different unique
identifiers, for instance, a password, mother's maiden name, a memorable date,
or a few minutes of inactivity automatically logs users off the account.
Besides, the Secure Socket Layer, a widely-used protocol use for online credit
card payment, is designed to provide a private and reliable channel between two
communicating entities; the use of Java Applet that runs within the user's
browser; the use of a Personal Identification Number, as well as an integrated
digital signature and digital certificate associated with a smart card system
(Hutchinson and Warren, 2003).
4.
Security
Assurance
about security relates to the extent to which the web site guarantees the
safety of customers` financial and personal information, an area which has
witnessed a proliferation of research interest (Kimery and McCord, 2002;
Miyazaki and Krishnamurthy, 2002). In the bank, security is assured by
providing privacy statement and information about the security of the shopping
mechanisms and by displaying the logos of trusted third parties.
5.
Design
The
goal of aesthetic design is to make a web site visually attractive and
enjoyable. Proctor et al (2002, 2003) discussed content preparation in a broad
sense and identified its four aspects: knowledge elicitation, information organization
and structure, information retrieval, and information presentation.
In
the bank during designing, and prior to implementation, users of different ages
and with a range of capabilities and limitations were engaged to trial the new
service and provided feedback. The bank tested accessibility of its customer
website with both automated tools and user accessibility trials.
6.
Content
Jayawardhena
and Foley (2000) and Pikkarainen et al (2004) claim that content on online
banking on the web site is one of the factors influencing online-banking
acceptance. On the other hand, quality designs, graphics or colors and the
propensity to portray good image of the bank would enhance efficient use of
navigation.
In
the context of internet banking, the bank is growing body of research that has
looked at influences on customer satisfaction. Jayawardhena and Foley (2000)
illustrated that such web site features as speed, web site content and design,
navigation, interactivity and security all influence user satisfaction whereas
The
bank found that the level and nature of customer participation had the greatest
impact on the quality of the service experience and issues such as customers'
zone of tolerance, the degree of role understanding by customers and emotional response
potentially determined, expected and perceived service quality.
7.
Speed
Speed
of download depends on the nature of the site downloaded content, the computing
hardware and method of connection used to download information (Jayawardhena
and Foley, 2000).
The
bank’s site demonstration is small snapshots, and some users have to download
the program in order to view the demonstration. Most people perceive
downloading may import unwanted viruses, and consume hard disk space. Very
often, slow response time after any e-interaction leads to a delay of service
delivery and makes consumers unsure about whether or not the transaction is
completed (Jun and Cai, 2001). Research of the bank illustrates that certain
actions, such as increasing the speed of processing information and customers,
are likely to have an important effect in terms of pleasing customers; however
other activities, such as improving the reliability of equipment, lessens
dissatisfaction rather than delight customers. Therefore the bank ensures that
the dissatisfiers are dealt with before the satisfiers.
8.
Fees and Charges
Service
quality attributes in e-banking industry are important since human-internet
interaction is the main service delivery and communication channel.
The
bank is offering high quality services to satisfy consumers' needs, at lower
costs. These are the potential competitive advantage of e-banking. Some studies
show that e-banking has successfully reduced operating and administrative costs
(Devlin, 1995; Siriluck and Speece, 2003). The bank’s research indicates that cost
savings have helped e-based bank offer lower or no service fees, and offer
higher interest rates on interest-bearing accounts than traditional banks
(Gerlach, 2000; Jun and Cai, 2001). Therefore, bank has hypothesized that fees
and charges have positive impact on customer satisfaction.
Conclusion
This report was developed
in order to use the disconfirmation theory with
customer satisfication in any UK based
bank. Our selected bank was Barclays.
Our
basic assumptions are that e-banking functionality factors namely
(accessibility, convenience, security, privacy, content, design, speed, fees
and charges) influence satisfaction and outcomes of satisfaction namely loyalty
and positive word of mouth. A multiple regression modeling approach was
proposed as an effective method for studying the relationships. It, suggests
that the eight e-banking factors explain variance for the dimension of
satisfaction. Of these significant variables, security, privacy, and content
appear to have the greatest impact on satisfaction.
In
addition, it predicted that the influence of such factors (accessibility,
convenience, security, privacy, content, design, speed, fees and charges) on
satisfaction would differ according to the personal variables, which are
personal characteristics and their experience in computers. The results of the
multiple regression analysis signal that there is variation in the effect of
e-banking functionality factors on satisfaction and empirical evidence in this
research suggests that e-banking factors have a significant degree of influence
on satisfaction and outcomes of satisfaction. This empirical evidence has
provided significant support for the e-banking literature, which substantively
advocates that e-banking functionality factors have an impact on outcome of
satisfaction.
The
results empirically substantiate that e-banking functionality factors play a
fundamental role in the satisfaction among banks. This research seeks to make
an original contribution to knowledge by investigating the impact of e-banking
factors on outcomes of customer satisfaction in bank industry. This research
contributes to the services marketing discipline in finding out the role of the
e-banking in enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Factors
pertaining to accessibility, convenience, security, privacy, content, design,
speed, fees and charges were a focus of this study as they have an influence on
customer satisfaction. Contributions found will be beneficial for both
academics and managers alike. Academically, this work aims to focus academic
attention upon a much neglected domain – the marketing and information
technology of banking services. In fact, the banking services industry is an
important and vibrant sector and banks are considered as an important segment
of the financial services provider where customers can receive a wide range of
financial services.
Although
this research has provided valuable insights into a somewhat scant area of
research, it has been subject to some limitations. To begin with, there were
some difficulties in the distribution of the research questionnaire within the
customers of the bank, possibly leading to some inconsistencies in the data
collection process. For example, a portion of the bank opted to distribute the
instrument to respondents themselves, where in other cases the researcher
delivered the survey to respondents individually. In addition, this research
has been conducted within a single service industry and exclusively in the bank,
thus limiting the generalisability of the research results to the foreign banks
and other financial organizations in UK.
Future
research is therefore required to extend these results in other geographical
areas and among managerial employees at the bank. For example, the concept
could be extended to other countries in order to validate the model and
findings. By studying other service and financial services (for example,
specialty banks, money transfer services, insurance companies) a model could be
developed to better represent the service sector in more general, rather than
focusing on the commercial banks alone. The inclusion of employees at all
service levels would allow for more insight to be gathered on employees'
viewpoints, attitudes, perceptions and overall satisfaction of outcomes of
satisfaction.
Future
research should also investigate whether the model could be used for a
comparative study between the service sector and the industrial sector, testing
for the differences and effects of electronic functionality factors in both
sectors. By doing so, it would be interesting to test whether the model could
hold across a range of industries and service sectors apart from banking
industry.
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