Dissertation: Customer Satisfaction in Retail Banking (Bank of XXX)

This dissertation outline focuses on analyzing customer satisfaction within the personal banking sector of Bank of XXX Singapore branch. The study aims to assess current satisfaction levels, identify critical success factors influencing customer perception, and determine the correlation between these factors and overall satisfaction. The research incorporates literature reviews on customer satisfaction and service quality, referencing key studies by Churchill & Surprenant (1982), Yee et al. (2010), and Parasuraman, Berry & Zeithaml (1988). The methodology involves a questionnaire survey with closed-ended questions to gather data on various factors, analyzed to identify areas for improvement and understand customer needs. The findings and analysis will use bar charts and correlation analysis to evaluate the impact of different variables on customer satisfaction, leading to conclusions on how to enhance customer experience and service quality in retail banking. The outline includes a comprehensive list of references supporting the research.

Dissertation Outline
Working title
A Study on Critical Success Factors of Customer Satisfaction in Retail
Banking: Bank of XXX Singapore Branch Personal Banking
Introduction, problem setting, aim and objectives
Introduction: Will introduce the bank roles, bank situation and competition in
Singapore market, and a brief company profile for Bank of XXX Singapore branch.
Aim/Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyse the customer satisfaction level
of Bank of XXX Singapore branch Personal Banking. Will explore the critical success
factors that affect their customer satisfaction level and find out what can be
improved. Also, this study will have a further understanding about customers’ need
for bank service.
Objectives: The study is aimed at investigating:
1) The current customer satisfaction level of Bank of XXX Singapore Branch
personal banking;
2) The critical success factors that influence customer satisfaction level for Bank
of XXX Singapore Branch personal banking;
3) The correlation relationship between these factors (independent variables)
and the overall satisfaction (dependent variables).
Literature Reviews:
Customer satisfaction provides an essential link between cumulative purchase and
post-purchase phenomena in terms of attitude change, repeat purchase and brand
loyalty (Churchill & Surprenant, 1982).
Service quality has a positive influence on customer satisfaction (Yee et al., 2010).
Service quality can be defined as meeting the needs and expectations of the
customer (Smith, 1998).
There are various literatures examine factors affecting customer satisfactions such
as:
Arasli, Smadi and Katircioglu (2005) found that reliability had the highest impact on
customer satisfaction;
The definition of service quality can be extended to the overall evaluation of a
specific service with ten service quality dimensions: tangibles, reliability,
responsiveness, competence, courtesy, credibility, security, access,
communication and understanding/knowing the customer (Parasuraman, et al.,
1988). (You may want to add more literature reviews here)
Methodology
There are various methods used in collecting data for analysis. In this survey, we

use questionnaire survey as the main method for data collection since it is the most
convenient method for gathering the data. The questionnaire consists of 15 closed
ended questions (Independent Variables) and 1 open ended question (Dependent
Variables). Each question will ask the respondents to indicate their agreement with
each statement using a five-point ranging from Very Poor (Low) =1, Poor = 2,
Satisfactory = 3, Good =4 and Excellent =5.
Findings and Analysis (may not be possible to write much here until after data
analysed)
By collecting the 50 questionnaires’ survey to make the bar chart and analyse the
findings for each factor, then through the correlation relationship between
independent variables and dependent variables to analyse which factors that do well
and which factor that still need to improve and how to improve.
Conclusions
As per above objectives and analysis, will make conclusion as to whether the
customer satisfaction lever in retail banking for XXX personal banking is good or not
and how to improve to make it better.
References
Arasli, H., Smadi, S. M. & Katircioglu, S. T. (2005) ‘Customer service quality in the
Greek Cypriot banking industry’ Managing Service Quality. 15(1) pp. 41-56.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09604520510575254 [accessed 28 November 2015].
Churchill, G. & Surprenant, C. (1982) ‘An investigation into the determinants of
customer satisfaction’ Journal of Marketing Research. 19 (4) pp.491-504.
http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3151722 [accessed 28 November 2015].
Parasuraman, A., Berry, L. L. & Zeithaml, V. A. (1988)’SERVQUAL: A multiple-
item scale for measuring consumer perceptions of service quality’ Journal of
Retailing.64(1) pp.12-40.
Smith, S. (1998) How to create a plan to deliver great customer service. In Zemke,
R.& Woods, J. A. (eds.). Best Practices in Customer Service. New York, NY:
AMACOM. (You may want to add more references here related to your literature
reviews above)