Bank service quality: evidence from five Balkan countries

Purpose – Despite the rapid growth and internationalisation of services and financial services in particular, managers realise that to successfully leverage service quality as a global competitive tool, they first need to correctly identify the antecedents of what the international consumer perceives as service quality. This paper aims to examine the differences: in perceptions of service quality; and in the ranking of quality dimension between the bank customers of five Balkan countries: Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, FYROM and Serbia.Design/methodology/approach – Bahia and Nantel proposed a specific scale for measuring perceived service quality in retail banking consisting of six dimensions of service quality: effectiveness and assurance; access; price; tangibles; service portfolio; and reliability. This instrument was used for collecting data in the context of banking services from the five Balkan countries. T‐test and factor analysis were employed to answer the research questions.Findings – The results su...

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