Income Level of the Consumer and Service

Abstract

The banking sector in Sri Lanka grew rapidly in the recent years. Services sector accounts 56.2% of Gross Domestic Product in Sri Lankan economy which is the highest in all sectors where as the financial services which includes banking industry contribute 9.7% to total Gross Domestic Product (Central bank Report 2006). Further in Sri Lanka, financial system of the country mainly depends on banking system because banking sector represents a share of 70.8% of total financial system of the economy. The rapidly changing and highly competitive environment which banks are forced to operate within are pushing them to rethink about their attitude towards customer satisfaction and optimization of service quality. With this background this study is aimed at identifying the significance of the income level of the consumers’ on the evaluation of service quality in the retail commercial banking industry of Sri Lanka. Further, to identify whether there is any difference based on the level of income of the consumers on evaluation of service quality of the banks of which they are dealing with. A sample of 150 consumers was selected through stratified random sampling technique. The scope of the study was retail consumers of private and public commercial banks situated in the Gampaha district, who have been dealing with those particular banks more than two years. The retail consumers who are maintaining savings accounts, fixed deposit accounts and current accounts were considered proportionately in drawing the sample elements. Survey method used to gather primary data and it was developed on SERVQUAL model of service quality. The gathered data were analyzed using ANOVA with Duncan Multiple Range Test and findings showed that there are slight differences among the consumer groups based on their income levels in terms of evaluation of service quality provided by the banks. Keywords : Service Quality, Retail Consumers, Banking industry, Income Level

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