DEVELOPING AN INSTRUMENT FOR MEASURING BANKING SERVICE QUALITY

The purpose of this paper is to develop an instrument for measuring service quality in the Macedonian retail banking sector by adapting and refining previously developed generic instruments, supplemented by items generated in a qualitative analysis. Actually, this research is an attempt to overcome the identified disadvantages of the generic SERVQUAL instrument, and to develop a more reliable and more valid instrument for measuring retail banking service quality in Macedonia. For that purpose, the perceptions section of the SERVQUAL scale, i.e. SERVPERF scale was adapted and refined for measuring the functional aspects of service quality and the instrument proposed by Lassar et al. (2000) was used for measuring the technical aspects of service quality. New items in the inventory were added as a result of the conducted qualitative analysis, identifying the specific aspects of the industry and country context. Further, factor analysis was conducted for data reduction and for refining the generated inventory of items. The sample consisted of 208 private clients of banks in Macedonia. Inventory refinement resulted in a reliable and valid instrument for measuring Macedonian banking service quality, encompassing both functional and technical aspects of service quality. Additionally, the conducted analysis identified three dimensions of service quality in the banking sector of Macedonia: reliability/responsiveness, tangibles and price. The developed instrument would be of great importance in fulfilling the sectorial and cultural gap in understanding and measuring service quality. Additionally, this research would be of great managerial and academic importance as a basis for further research and measurement of service quality in the banking sector in Macedonia.