An Investigation of the Effect of Service Quality on Customer Satisfaction: A Case of Zanaco Bank

The key to surviving in a global market is to focus on quality of service to customers. Every organization should focus on providing quality service to its customers. ZANACO Bank has implemented several service quality features and systems such as: B. changing the interior design of bank buildings, investing in technologies and bringing services closer to customers through ZANACO express agents, mobile banking and opening new branches. Therefore, the study examined the impact of service quality on customer satisfaction using ZANACO Bank as an example. A survey of 397 customers of ZANACO Bank was conducted at the main branch in Lusaka. The study used descriptive and causal designs. The study analyzed the data by determining frequencies, percentages, and means, and the study used Spearman correlation analysis to determine the effect. The study found that the service quality attributes important to bank customers were prompt customer support, politeness of bank employees, accuracy of bank transactions, security of banking services, customer support, convenient business hours, reliability of banking services and affordability (cost) of services. The study found that banks' responsiveness, accuracy, reliability and empathy have a significant impact on customer satisfaction, while tangible attributes have little or no impact on customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction had a strong positive effect on customer loyalty, with a correlation coefficient of 0.9264, statistically significant at a p-value of 0.0001. The study therefore recommended that: Banks should focus more on reliability, security, empathy and responsiveness to increase customer satisfaction; Offering incentives such as reducing bank fees; and the use of customer loyalty programs to remain competitive.