Customer Satisfaction in Indian Retail Banking: A Grounded Theory Approach

Customer satisfaction is imperative for the long-term success of any organization. More the competition, higher is the necessity to keep the customers satisfied. After liberalization in 1990 and economic reforms and the entry of new service providers in the Indian market, Indian banks - both public sector and private sector are facing enormous competition. In this competitive atmosphere, it becomes essential to understand the factors which might affect customer satisfaction in the Indian retail banking sector. In this study the researchers studied the construct of customer satisfaction with respect to Indian retail banking from a qualitative perspective. We studied the dimensions of customer satisfaction. We applied Grounded Theory Method, a tool for qualitative analysis. We conducted depth interviews and focus groups of Indian retail banking customers. The participants were persons who have availed Indian retail banking services. The analysis included open coding of the data and writing memos, concept generation from the phenomena, index card sorting to identify categories and sub-categories, axial coding to relate the categories and sub-categories, and selective coding to identify the core category. The findings included the concepts generated which would determine the dimensions which might affect customer satisfaction.