Service Quality And Customer Satisfaction Among Account Holders Of Deposit Taking Savings And Credit Cooperative Societies In Nairobi City County, Kenya

ABSTRACT

Global competitive environment characterized by technological advancement and customer dynamics have continued to increase pressure to businesses in the financial industry forcing them to re-think their customer satisfaction strategies for sustainability. Technological advancement has brought about consumer awareness resulting into consumer rights groups, availability of competing brands and substitutes that have increased consumer demand. A report by the DT SACCO regulator on the in-active account holders portray a membership that is dissatisfied hence looking for alternative solutions. Members are concerned by DT SACCO’s non-compliance with the regulators requirements leading to de-registration which affects member savings, the loan backlog, which makes the members wait for long to receive their loan and sourcing funds from external sources leading to high cost to the members. SACCO members who are not satisfied have the option of withdrawing by transferring their shares to other SACCOs. Organizations innovate products and services with an aim of satisfying their target market while also benefiting profitably. Financial industry needs to emphasize on service quality to increase customer satisfaction. The study sought to assess the effect of service quality on customer satisfaction among account holders of DT SACCOs in Nairobi City County, Kenya. Key specific objectives were; to assess the effect of tangibility on customer satisfaction, to establish the effect of reliability on customer satisfaction, to establish the effect of responsiveness on customer satisfaction, to assess the effect of assurance on customer satisfaction and to determine the effect of empathy on customer satisfaction. Theories of cognitive dissonance, expectancy-disconfirmation, SERVQUAL and European Consumer Satisfaction Index guided the study. The study used descriptive design. The target population consisted of members of DT SACCOs in Nairobi generated from SASRA DT SACCO performance report of 2016. A census survey of 39 DT SACCOs was adopted with a sample of 100. Stratified sampling was used. Questionnaire was developed from SERVQUAL model. Systematic random sampling was used to identify respondents in the banking hall, assisted by two research assistants. Cronbach’s Alpha was used to test reliability. Analysis was done through; descriptive, correlation and multiple regression. SPSS software was used to perform the analysis. Presentation was done through tables. The study found that service quality is strongly related with customer satisfaction. The study also found that empathy affected the outcome of customer satisfaction significantly thus rejected the null hypothesis H05. However, tangibility, reliability, responsiveness and assurance did not have significant effect on customer satisfaction hence the study failed to reject hypotheses H01, H02, H03 and H04. The study recommended enhancement of the four service quality dimensions to improve customer satisfaction. The study also recommended future research to be done on corporate image and customer satisfaction.