Employee engagement and customer satisfaction in commercial banking in South Africa.
Date
2016
Authors
Wartenweiler, Marc Lee
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Abstract
The banking industry has always had a strong focus on customer service and banks spend a lot of time and energy on improving their customer service practices. The theory is that improved customer service will help create relationships with customers that will prevent them from moving to the competition. Loyal customers result in higher retention rates and this has positive effect on profitability.
The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there is a positive association between employee engagement levels and customer satisfaction among Commercial Banking relationship managers within a South African financial services institution.
The researcher utilised 2 years worth of employee engagement data from 450 relationship managers and compared these results to customer satisfaction levels over the corresponding period. Regression analysis and structured equation modelling was conducted on the data for statistical purposes.
Results from the statistical analysis indicate that there is a small but significant positive association between employee engagement and customer satisfaction. This proved Hypothesis 1. The second finding validating Hypothesis 2 was that customer satisfaction is associated with improved employee engagement.
The key conclusion from this research is that improving employee engagement levels in an organisation can improve customer satisfaction which may lead to improved customer retention and higher profitability.
Description
MBA
Keywords
Banks and banking -- South Africa. Consumer satisfaction -- South Africa.Customer relations -- South Africa -- Management.