Customer Satisfaction After Implementation of E-Banking free essay sample

It refers to the use of information and communication technology by banks to provide services and manage customer relationship more quickly and most satisfactorily (Charity-Commission, 2003). Burr (1996) describes it as an electronic connection between the bank and the customer in order to prepare, manage and control financial transactions. Electronic banking according to Al-Abed (2003) is an umbrella term for the process by which a customer may perform banking transactions electronically without visiting a brick-and-mortar institution. Lustsik (2004) describes electronic banking as a variety of the following platforms: Internet banking, telephone banking, TV-based banking, mobile phone banking, and PC banking. A few decades ago it used to take at least a day for a transaction to reflect in the account because each branch had their local servers, and the data from the server in each branch was sent in a batch to the servers in the data center only at the end of the day or end of the month. For the purpose of this research, we define electronic banking as the delivery of banking services and products through the use of electronic means irrespective of place, time and distance. Such products and services can include deposit-taking, lending, account management, the provision of financial advice, electronic bill payment, and the provision of other electronic payment products and services such as electronic money. The benefits of this 21st century banking are numerous. Its introduction would increase the potential of business to attain greater productivity and profitability, as trading and transactions, which would be carried out via communication networks, would be a lot faster and distance would no longer be barrier to effective transactions (Fagbuyi, 2003). â€Å"The banking sector has embraced the use of technology to serve its client’s faster and also to do more with less cost. Emerging technologies have changed the banking industry from paper and branch based banks to â€Å"digitized and networked banking services. Unlike before, broadband internet is cheap and it makes the transfer of data easy and fast. Technology has changed the accounting and management system of all banks. And it is now changing the way how banks are delivering services to their customers. However, this technology comes at a cost, implementing all this technology has been expensive but the rewards are limitless† ( Phillip Yiga 2011). According to Sergeant (2000), the benefits of E-banking are manifold and are o be seen from the point view of the banks themselves, customers and even the regulators. According to him, for banks, E-banking brings different and arguably lower barriers to entry; opportunities for significant cost reduction; the capacity to rapidly reengineer business processes; and greater opportunities to sell cross border. For customers, the potential benefits are: more choice; greater competition and better value for money; more information; better tools to manage and compare information; and faster ser vice. 1. 2 Statement of the Problem There are various number of ways which banks compete to each others in the banking industry like strong advertising, paying relatively better interest rate, using new technology, extending working hours, changing the banking system in to electronically and others. However, when banks change their system from mechanical to electronically, they are doing it without taking in to consideration various circumstances. When banks change their system from the traditional one in to e-banking system, they will totally stop using the previous system and at the same time there is no any other alternate option to continue providing the service. Most electronic banking services are highly depending on other parties’ performance. For instance, if Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation network system gets down, it will have a direct effect on the e-banking service. The same is true for Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation. As a result customers will suffer and will be unhappy on the bank services due to the use of e-banking new technology and its dependability with other parties. One of the benefits banks derive from electronic banking products and services delivery is improved efficiency and effectiveness of their operations so that more transactions can be processed faster and most conveniently, which will undoubtedly impact significantly on the overall performance of the banks. The customers on the other hand, stand to enjoy the benefit of quick service delivery, reduced frequency of going to banks physically and reduced cash handling, which will give rise to higher volume of turnover. However, these developments in the Nigerian banking industry seem not to have achieved their aims. Through Internet banking, customers would enjoy sitting in the comfort of their homes and offices and with a PC log onto their banks’ servers and transact banking activities. Banks customers’ taste and desire have begun to raise the stakes of expectation of exceptional services. Customers want to transact their banking transactions at any time and location convenient for their life-style. They want to pay their regular household bills, buy and sell stocks and shares (Carse, 1999). The efficiency, growth and the need to satisfy a growing tech-survey consumer base are three clear rationales for implementing E-banking in Ethiopia. The four forces customers, technology, convergence and globalization have the most important effect on the Ethiopia financial sector and these changes are forcing banks to refocus their activities and relationship with their customers. The success of electronic banking, as agued by many researchers, depends probably on bank service quality, customer preferences and satisfaction. Recent studies found that consumer behavior is changing partly because of more spare time. The way of use of financial services is characterized by individuality, mobility, independence of place and time, and flexibility (Seitz and Stickel, 2004). Historically, banks have taken the attitude that they will provide customers with the services and products that they, the banks, wish to provide. Buyer power, as evidenced by the increase in wealth and sophistication of the most profitable customers, now dictates that such customers will determine with whom they will bank, which products they will use, what pricing they will accept and which delivery channels they choose to use. Banks not recognizing these requirements could rapidly lose between 30-50% of their customers, especially the most profitable customers including the magic top10%. It has been proven that the least profitable clients will be the least likely to move. Banks are therefore being forced to adopt a strategy towards their customers that is focused on buyer driven desires. In order to survive both from domestic and the increasing level of global cross-border competition, banks need to change their process of servicing their customers. Firstly, to capture and retain the most profitable customers and secondly to redirect unprofitable customers into service channels which can limit the costs and maximize potential revenues (Mols, 1998). Success in the electronic-banking era is measured in the eyes of the customer. A bank has to profitably meet the needs of customers and continuously improve its ability to do so. It has to be accurate, reliable, helpful and understanding. The goal is not simply to satisfy customers but to positively delight them. The specific things that delight the customer vary from industry to industry and from product to product. But most customers want the same things. According to (Balachandher, 2001), 1. Customers are interested in quality 2. They desire good and effective service delivery 3. They want flexibility so that the specific product or service be obtained 4. They covet value by not wanting to pay a price that exceeds the value received from the product. Researchers conducted in some countries on customers’ perception of and reaction to electronic banking products and services, and others on customer satisfaction concluded that the few e-banks that face liquidity problem in so-called advanced countries is as a result of the negative perception their customers have of the services. In fact, in some countries, E-banking products and services are not very popular because customers do not consider them as better alternative to traditional banking services (Balachandher, 2001). Worst still, findings of few researches reveal that some customers view these e-developments as nothing to talk about. What are e-banks expected to do? Lustsik (2004) adds that an important factor indicating an urgent need for change is that the Pareto 80/20 rule appears to be no longer valid. Recent analysis shows that instead of 20% of customers generating 80% of profits, 10% of customers are generating over 100% of profits. This of course means that the remaining 90% are unprofitable. Many banks are only just realizing that they are unable to measure profitability accurately enough to tell the difference between their profitable and unprofitable business. The tendency at these banks is therefore for all senior managers to claim that their business responsibility area is profitable in the absence of reliable management statistics that can demonstrate otherwise. A fundamental realization in the context of all these developments is that banking is changing from a seller riven process to a buyer driven process. Thus, the success of E-banking depends squarely on customers’ satisfaction of the e-products and e-services. E-banks need therefore, to make a lot of effort in creating awareness among existing and prospective customers about the benefits of these products and services. Banks in particular, need rebuild a customer focused banking with new improved processes, modern technology, a competitive ra nge of delivery channels and focusing services on the best customers. This of course requires the radical remodeling of the banks delivery channels and business process engineering resulting in significantly improved: process excellence, speed of delivery, and value to customers. Through these, customers’ perception of and reaction to electronic banking products and services would be positive. There are a number of lessons learned from our review of literature pertaining to electronic banking and customer satisfaction. The most striking one is that electronic products and services have a long history as means of delighting customers and improving performance. Consequently, various private banks were starting operationand start supporting the economic development. As it was a command economy before, only a government banks and financial institutions were in the activitiesof the economy such as National bank, commercial bank of Ethiopia, Development bank of Ethiopia and Construction and Business Bank. However, after a private banks come to the pipeline, the coverage and quality of the service shows relatively a better change. For instance, customers of the bank were previously forced to wait an hour or more to withdraw the money from their saving or current account. This is because, it was required to check the signatory, needs approval, needs to go and see the casher for the payment and some other process. The same was true to transfer some money from one part of the country to the other side of the country. It was possible to say there was no any computerized system to make the banking process very short and to save a customer time. For instance, if someone wants to send some money to his family in a remote area or to the country side, if telephone doesn’t work, there is no any means to get the money in short period and use the oney for his problem. The inability of banks to circulation of money in the economy as it is required could be taken as one of the factor for the economy slow movement of the country in the previous period. This was really a serious problem for the banking industry. However, after private banks start operating in the economy and start computerized banking system, this problem could be relatively reduced to some e xtent, and the computation between the banks to obtain a sustainable client and to mobilize the available resources and to win this tuff computation is very challenging. It needs continues research and market study and using a latest new technology to get a big market share and to obtain a good profit and to maximize the wealth of the owners. For this study, the research team prefers to use as a sample Wegagen Bank S. C. It is a privately owned share company which started operations on June 11, 1997 with a subscribed capital of Birr 60 million and a paid up capital of Birr30 million. The number of shareholders reached 2,130 while the total capital (including paid-up capital, share premium and legal  reserves) reached over Birr 1. Billion as at March 31, 2013. Wegagen Bank is governed by the Board of Directors consisting of a Chairman, a Vice Chairman and seven Directors. The overall management is entrusted to the management team which comprises the President/Chief Executive Officer, who is appointed by the Board of Directors, two Vice-Presidents and twelve Department Managers. As of March 31, 2013, the number of permanent employees of the Bank sto od at 2,158 of which 1,377 were clerical, professionals amp; semi-professionals, holding diploma and first amp; second degrees. Wegagen Bank has a network of 63 branches of which 28 are in Addis Ababa and the remaining 35 are located in other cities and towns of the country. Expansion of the network of branches will be pursued appropriately. It is a pioneer Bank to introduce a core banking system in July 2000, thereby managed  to network the Head Office organs, City Branches and some of the Outlying Branches. At present, migration of the existing Core Banking System into a more versatile and ISO-standard solution is completed. The Bank has also implemented a full-fledged Card Payment System, enabling its customers to get 24/7 banking services, on our ATM network, and on POS Terminals, as well. Statement of the Problem There are a number of various ways of computing in the banking industry like strong advertising, paying relatively better interest rate, using new technology, extending working hours, and others. However, sometimes when banks compute by implementing a new technology, they will do it without studying in a very detailed way or without taking in to consideration various circumstances. Some people also are very worried that some technologies are highly exposed for theft and losing a human relationship in the day-to-day banking transaction. When banks implement the new technology, they will totally stop using the previous system and at the same time there is no any other alternate option to continue providing the service when the new technology fails to work for short period. As a result customers will suffer and will be unhappy with the use of the new technology and their satisfaction with the bank will be highly affected. Purpose of the study The purpose of this research will be therefore to see how much the customer satisfaction is affected after banks implement the new technology and to suggest what researchers believe after investigating and analyzing all the findings. In addition, the research team will try to look at what will be the consequence of highly depend on the computers and other machines on the man to man relation and the dis appearance of the human relation part. In general, to see really customers are satisfied after banks implement the computerized and net worked banking system or not. Significance of the study The output of this research could be used as an input for further research or it may help banks as a reference when they plan to implement the new technology in the future or to take some and immediate action to correct if they believe that they did or committed some mistakes when they implement the new technology. Research questions In this research, the research team will ask and investigate to answer for the following questions: Is the new technology really satisfied what customers need? Is there any alternative or back up which banks set as a reserve when the new implemented technology fails? What is the degree of safety when banks totally depend on the computerized system? Is there any side effect which came to the banking industry by following the introduction of the computerized technology? Background of the Study â€Å"The banking sector has embraced the use of technology to serve its client’s faster and also to do more with less. Emerging technologies have changed the banking industry from paper and branch based banks to†digitized and networked banking services. Unlike before, broadband internet is cheap and it makes the transfer of data easy and first. Technology has changed the accounting and management system of all banks. And it is now changing the way how banks are delivering services to their customers. However this technology comes at a cost, implementing all this technology has been expensive but the rewards are limitless† Phillip Yiga 2011. According to the research which is done by Dr. Ala ‘EddinMohad Assistant Professor of Jordan- Amman and Dr Ali Hasan Al- Azu Associate professor of the same university in the title of E-Banking functionality and Outcomes of customer satisfaction (Feb. 2011), they concluded that the new technology has a positive effect in customer satisfaction by giving the chance for customers an accessibility, convenience, security, privacy, content, design, speed, fees and charges. On the other hand some other scholars protest that there are some dis advantage of using a new technology in the banking industry. A disadvantage in this line of work is that IT provides mass collaboration with customers/partners/businesses in a real time setting allowing the passage of funds/transactions instantly. With such fast communication it is hard to verify if said transactions are real or said customers/partners/businesses are real until after losses have incurred or a strong relationship has been built. We no longer have to look customers in the face in order to transact. You only need a computer. Therefore there is always the risk of false identity and stolen accounts. The last disadvantage is that banks rely and partner up with other banks especially in the international markets. You are trusting that their Compliance is up to snuff as well as their security because depending on how the relationship is layered a simple database breach could level the bank(s). Moreover, the personal observation of the research members that accumulation of a huge number of people in one branch while there are only few people are present to get a service in some other branches generate a question why this happened ? And raise another question which it says may be the ability of bank customers to get the same service in any branches creates this mess? Therefore, this research will be conducted to see which side will be more valuable and how customers’ satisfaction is really affected after banks implementing a new technology in Ethiopia. Methodology The research team has a plan to investigate the information for this research by using a primary data collection.