Customer Satisfaction In Internet Banking - Essay Example

Satisfaction In Internet Banking In the evolution of social science, when the human race started a rapid progress, the trade and the commerce took sea change. With time; the basket of bread of the human beings, the market became complex, making the life too eventually so. So, to organise their business and the transactions, a formal and methodical body was found and christened as bank or banker. The name bank derives from the Italian vocabulary banco which means desk or bench, precisely, used during the period of Renaissance by the Florentines bankers, who used to make their transactions above a desk covered by a green tablecloth (de Albuquerque & Martim 1855). More evidences and marks of banking activities are found in the ancient times as well. In fact, the word digs its origins back to the Ancient Roman Empire, where the moneylenders used to set up their stalls in the middle of enclosed courtyards called macella on a long bench called a bancu, from which the words banco and bank are finally derived. The merchant of the bancu, being a moneychanger, simply converted foreign money the Imperial Mint, the sole legal Roman tender. He did not invest a lot of money. (Matyszak & Philip 2007). A banker or bank has been in the status of a formal financial institution whose primary activity is to serve as a payment agent for customers to borrow and lend. The name of the first modern bank was Banco di San Giorgio or the Bank of St. George which was established in Italy at Genoa during the year 1406. As the human life style started ticking faster, the modes of transaction also indicated a shift to fit in the pace of the human wants, movements of goods and services and the time value factor that became crucial. The paper is concentrating on the aspect of one of the modern banking pattern; most contemporary and commonly known as the internet banking and the customer satisfaction in its service. The precursor for the modern day’s home or office based internet banking services were the distance banking services over electronic media from the early 80s. the late eighties saw the popularity of internet rise and this brought with it the utility of a keyboard, monitor and terminal. The phone might or might not have been used in the process. Home banking can also refer to the use of a numeric keypad to transmit tones through a phone line with instructions to the bank. In 1981 four banking giants of New York, Citibank, Chase Manhattan, Chemical and Manufacturers Hanover began to render home banking service through the application of internet and this marked the beginning of online services. The service used the videotex system. (Brown & Buys 2004). But due to the commercial failure of videotex these banking services never became popular until in France where the use of videotex of Minitel was subsidised by the telecom providers and in the UK, where the Prestel system was used. Several research proceedings have addressed the satisfaction of users with the help of information systems. This has been a popular tool or parameter for measurign or estimating success. With the preloaded facilities of the IT supported banking system has given the customers a new vista towards financial activities. The Internet has allowed applications to be extended to customers of an organization, where interaction is not area specific and can take place also through a web site, typically from home or office or anywhere a fully functional computer is connected to an internet service. Customer satisfaction is the main concern in case of applications. With the introduction of a 19-item, 5-factor validated instrument of high speed banking factors, like Customer Support, Security, Ease of Use, Transactions and Payment issues, Information Content and Innovation; it is taking the customer’s confidence by storm. Both the system and the customer had to go through different situations, highs and lows and the area specific issues. To address these, the paper will jot down different situations concerning the customer’s satisfaction in the process of internet banking. As all kinds of information technologies are converging rapidly in recent few years from simple traditional computers to diversified multimedia information system, creating an unprecedented service area of technologies and devices. The electronic functionalities have converged devices with powerful contents and functions, such as the World Wide Web, videoconferencing, e-mail, Internet telephony, online gaming, digital television, and net banking, are easier to use than the traditional computers. These information technology revolutions along with rapid growing of network technology not only increased the types of Internet applications, but also led to diversified consumer behaviours. On the other hand, as one-to-one marketing is different from traditional marketing methods because it focuses on customer satisfaction and is customer oriented rather than focusing on marketing mass consumers; satisfaction level of the customer has also increased. It also the practice of one-to-one marketing to find more different products and services for the same customer in order to retain their confidence levels and to find out how easy they are feeling with the visual merchandising of the internet service. Therefore, potential and innovative cross-selling in one-to-one system through online structured product mix analysis, enhance relationship with customers by means of add on personalised offers through product knowledge and understanding users’ needs and making useful suggestions for new product usage in one-to-one online banking. Thus the credit of customer’s satisfaction towards online transaction goes to the critical issues of the information appliance firms (Liao, Chyuan, Chia & Shih 2008). The survey results focussed on the buyers reflect the use of Self-service technology persistently. This gave it a different innovative lead. The adoption of SST or its acceptance by the buyers is generally the concern of such studies. So SST area is often overlooked. Now that the buyers or customers are satisfied with the user friendly online structure of banking and transactions, instead of new buyer’s SST acquisition, the continued use of SST that is a cost-effective market strategy has aimed at retaining buyers with its expanding facilities. A certain sample survey based on Internet Banking in Estonia, shows that a continuous use of SST perceived usefulness is influenced by the buyers in a positive manner. Firstly, continued use of SST is achieved when the buyer finds the SST useful. Secondly, the SST needs to consider the context of all the verticals in the buyer and the service provider’s interface, because the buyer does not separate the kind of service offered by an SST of a particular vertical from the others. The customer satisfaction associated with using SST will increase if these strategic issues are taken care of. Thus the ambiguity in the site map needs to be resolved to provide the best possible remote assistance, as more than 50% of the sale happens online (Eriksson & Nilsson 2007). The number of verticals that a retail system can use interchangeably to provide customer service has increased. A report on a study of clients of a large retail bank that investigates the channel performance, reveals satisfaction behavioral intentional relationship, when the traditional service vertical, i.e., the branch office is extended with technology driven vertical i.e., internet banking. As far as the daily routine services are concerned the evidence points out the fact that the performance factors related to the office ambience would influence the level of customer satisfaction. The factor that makes the customer comfortable in availing the service satisfies the behavioural intentions too (Birgelen, Jong & Ruyter 2006). With the shift in the societal behavioural pattern online banking and e-commerce are experiencing a rapid growth over the past few years and show tremendous promise of growth even in the future. This has made it easier for fraudsters to indulge in new and hi-tech ways of committing credit card fraud over the Internet. Taking it other way; perhaps this is the curse of the behavioural change. The real-time fraud detection and innovative approach in understanding spending patterns is on action to decipher potential fraud cases. It makes use of self-organization map to decipher, filter and analyse customer’s behaviour for detection of fraud. Thus with the add on technologies customers can make themselves satisfied in terms of securities on internet banking; but for that, they should respond accordingly (Quah & Sriganesh 2008). The focus on new technologies in service sector is growing and is of particular importance in financial industry. It is argued that; it is the commonwealth for both bank and customer if the adoption of self-service technologies (SSTs) happens, of which internet banking is one example. It is quite clear why the banks adopted internet banking solutions from an economic perspective. However, the proposition of value for the customer is not much evident. The value proposition on offer through internet banking is better conveyed to customers by a greater understanding of the appropriateness of the on-line medium for products as they varied according to complexity level through the verticals. This neutralisation of complexity level has the propensity to purchase financial products on-line at varying levels of complexity (Durkin, Jennings, Mulholland and Worthington 2008). As technology adds new dimensions to the traditional banking systems, financial institutions offer new banking verticals to their customers. Study reveals that young consumers perceive Internet banking much comfortably in relation to other six banking verticals like brick and mortar, automated teller machine (ATM), phone banking, wireless application protocol (WAP), electronic fund transfer at point of sale (EFTPOS), and bank branches (in stores). The results indicate that Internet banking, ATM, and phone banking substitute each other. The results also confirms that the Internet banking is the efficient for its ease of use and access, and that the users of Internet banking lack confidence in the security of the web sites of Internet banking is feeling affable with the system, with its add on in build security ports in the banking system (Calisir & Gumussoy 2008). After the specific section of society this is the societal empirical investigation on the use of the Internet as a banking transactions channel in the European Union. It studied the variables such as customers ownership of diverse financial products and services, as well as their perceptions and attitudes towards financial services and the Internet as a financial distribution desk. The results confirm that ownership of diverse financial products and services, attitude towards finances, and trust in the Internet as a channel for financial operations exert significant influence on Europeans use of the Internet for banking in their fast and complex lifestyle (Guerrero, Egea & González 2007). When the market saw the satisfying trend of the customers towards internet banking, to bolster the effect, Barclays moved as catalyst for the sale of handheld smart card readers in the UK market. It has said that it will send out chip and PIN card readers to half a million of its online-banking customers, as a mark of proactive customer service so its customers do not feel lost with the ever enhancing technology. This is essentially a solution which is based on card in order to stop or prevent the online fraud. Again, this does away with the necessity to remember long pass codes or words. Technology has made life easy for customers; thus they are satisfied (Card Technology Today 2007). It is the Chinese banking system feeling the impact of the 4th generation online banking system. After the previous three generations of online systems, the next generation online systems in banking is securing the future of the customers and their fund, by use of intelligence network with full integration of management support, operating services, information services and customer services. Thus, customer’s facility, cyber security in transaction and a perpetual technological development to serve the customer’s need at any level; have changed the customer habit and the definition of banking (Oppenheim & Shao 1994). Realising fact that the society is getting over communicated and the important details fall in the wrong hands due the lack of self security maintenance. UK-based internet bank, introduced Egg, a new service that will allow forgetful customers to securely view their credit card PIN online. The new mechanism is being launched to combat fears of UK’s conversion to EMV PIN-based transactions at the point of sale causing problems to consumers suffering from an information overload (Card Technology Today 2004). From the gist of the entire abstracts plotted there are at list 3 issues that seek the attention. The main issues are the technological advancement of internet banking will be of help to citizen across the society. A society where crime increases double fold, is safe to reveal the banking details to the fisher and the multiple verticals that create different SST patterns is increasing complexity to the system. In nutshell, though the issues have been declared; it remains derogatory until the questions those are crossing the field of the issues projected. Critically; the questions are: 1. The improved technology of Internet banking is taking the classic by storm; where in the former is a boon to the individuals related with business. But, is the technology addressing the need of the senior citizen in term of their IT literacy? 2. In a society where crime is for free, the safety of the banking details lies on the improved IT intelligence. Further, presently business transactions are the world affairs. Do all the nations of this world have the capacity to maintain this kind of upfront technology to sync with the international banking transaction system? 3. With the expansion of business verticals the complex system structure can be managed by improved programming. As both the Internet and the banking system is global, do all the countries in the world have their think tanks in their academicians equipped to rack their brains? Above are some questions or issues again which have opened the door that lying between to know things known and unknown. Reference 1. . Brown I & Buys M 2004, Customer satisfaction with internet banking web sites: an empirical test and validation of a measuring instrument, South African Institute for Computer Scientists and Information Technologists, Republic of South Africa. 2. Birgelen, M V, Jong, A d, Ruyter, K d 2006, Multi-channel service retailing: The effects of channel performance satisfaction on behavioral intentions, Journal of Retailing, Volume 82, Issue 4, 2006, Pages 367-377. 3. Cronin, M J 1997, Banking and Finance on the Internet, John Wiley and Sons. 4. de Albuquerque, M 1855, Notes and Queries, George Bell, London 5. Durkin, M, Jennings, D, Mulholland, G & Worthington, S 2008, Key influencers and inhibitors on adoption of the Internet for banking, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Volume 15, Issue 5, Pages 348-357. 6. Eriksson, K & Nilsson, D 2007, Determinants of the continued use of self-service technology: The case of Internet banking, TECHNOVATION, Volume 27, Issue 4, Pages 159-167. 7. Matyszak, P 2007, Ancient Rome on Five Denarii a Day, Thames & Hudson, New York.  8. Quah, J T S & Sriganesh, M 2008, Real-time credit card fraud detection using computational intelligence, Expert Systems with Applications, Volume 35, Issue 4, Pages 1721-1732. 9. Shu, H L, Chyuan, M C, Chia, L H & Shih, C H 2008, Mining information users’ knowledge for one-to-one marketing on information appliance, Article in Press, doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2003.10.071. 10. Calisir, F & Gumussoy, C A 2008, Internet banking versus other banking channels: Young consumers’ view, International Journal of Information Management, Volume 28, Issue 3, Pages 215-221. 11. Guerrero, M M, Egea, J M O & González, M V R 2007, Application of the latent class regression methodology to the analysis of Internet use for banking transactions in the European Union, Journal of Business Research, Volume 60, Issue 2, Pages 137-145. 12. Card Technology Today 2007, Barclays smart approach to online fraud targets 0.5m customers, Card Technology Today, Volume 19, Issue 4, Page 1. 13. Oppenheim, C & Shao, Y 1994, Online strategy analysis in the Chinese banking sector, International Journal of Information Management, Volume 14, Issue 3, Pages 176-187. 14. Card Technology Today 2004, Internet bank Egg helps forgetful customers, Card Technology Today, Volume 16, Issue 6, Page 6. Read More