Service Quality Gap Analysis in Indian Banks: An Empirical Study

Introduction of Liberalisation Privatisation and Globalisation (LPG) in Indian economy has affected almost all the sectors and industries of the economy. Indian banking industry is no exception to that. The net result of such policy initiatives has been increased competition at the marketplace. The fight for customers has got intensified. Literatures establish a direct link between service quality and marketing performance of banks thus concluding that loyal customer base can only be created through superior service. Hence effectiveness of service quality of banks is largely being tested to forecast the marketing performances of the banks. It has also been seen that degree and effectiveness of service quality has been said to be different in case of public and private sector bank. The paper investigates the service quality gaps existing with the offerings of the leaders of public and private sector banks of India, viz., SBI and HDFC Bank. An attempt has also been made to identify the weak links of select banks and enable the banks to understand the areas of their strengths and weaknesses and work upon to infuse efficiency and effectiveness.