Assessing Customers', Employees' and Managers' Perceptions of Service Quality in Sri Lankan Financial Industry

Abstract

The paper discusses the need to evaluate perception-based service quality in financial services. The aim of the research is to diagnose the potential matches and mismatches in how customers, frontline employees, and managers perceive service quality in the Sri Lankan financial industry, as well as provide some recommendations to improve service quality in financial services based on the findings of the research. This study utilises the One-Way ANOVA statistical test to understand whether there is a significant difference among three groups in terms of their perception of the service quality in Sri Lankan financial industry. A cross-sectional data collection was done by covering 96 financial institutions and 3420 respondents (1650 customers, 1085 frontline employees and 685 managers) while using similar types of questionnaires for all three groups. Results of the study reveal that there are potential mismatches among customers, frontline employees, and managers towards the perceived service quality. This difference can be identified in terms of service quality dimensions. By considering those findings, managers of the financial institutions need to take initiatives to reduce those perceptual gaps to align with customers' expectations while improving service quality in their institutions. So far, few studies have been done to simultaneously examine the front-line employees and customers’' customers' perceived service quality, but no study found which has identified perceptual differences of service quality in the financial Industry that could exist among customers, front-line employees, and managers.

Keywords: Service Quality, Perception Gap, Financial Industry