CUSTOMERS EXPECTATIONS AND PERCEPTIONS OF SERVICE QUALITY THE CASE OF COMMERCIAL BANK OF ETHIOPIA ADDIS ABABA BRANCH

Abstract

Commercial Banks of Ethiopia plays a significant role in the economy, making up one of the biggest provider of services in Ethiopian economy. Hence, providing better quality is vital as banks have to compete for customers. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the current level of customers’ expectations and perceptions of service quality of CBE Addis Ababa branch. To measure the service quality and customer satisfaction of bank service of CBE Addis Ababa branch SERVQUAL model was used. The SERVQUAL instrument maintained seven dimensions namely tangible, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, price and accessibility with a total of 30 statements placed on a 5 – point likert type scale (1-being strongly disagree to 5- being strongly agree). Furthermore, a sample of 100 respondents in CBE Addis Ababa branch was drawn using a convenience sampling approach, and 100 completely filled questionnaires were used in performing final analysis. The study was used both quantitative and qualitative data collection approach and also descriptive research design was applied .Findings support that all SERVQUAL dimensions of the service quality of CBE Addis Ababa Branch. Empathy was found to be the most critical factor of service quality followed by, responsiveness, reliability, assurance, accessibility and price, The main limitation of this study is that the data were gather form Addis Ababa branch only with a small sample size. Both the overall service quality and customer satisfaction were found to be reported above average, while still need improvement therefore it can be conclude that CBE Addis Ababa branch has to do on attributes associated with accessibility, empathy, responsiveness reliability, assurance and price in order to bring higher the level of customer satisfactions.