Developing a scale for service quality measurement in banks

Socio-cultural contexts determine different aspects of service quality; therefore, the definition of service quality varies from one setting to another. The measures of bank service quality that largely come from the research in the western context cannot be used as such in developing countries. This paper develops a scale for measuring service quality in the banking institutions of Pakistan, a developing country. Data was collected from the customers of four large banks in Pakistan using a mall intercept approach. Using confirmatory factor analysis on AMOS a measurement scale was developed. Bank service quality emerged as a six dimensional construct. The developed model is different from previous models reported in the literature, showing that determinants of service quality are essentially context-dependent. The model showed sound psychometric properties. The findings are noteworthy in that they expand our knowledge of what actually matters in the measurement of bank service quality.