Impact of Service Quality on Customer Loyalty and Customer Satisfaction in Islamic Banks in the Sultanate of Oman

This study attempts to examine the impact of service quality on customer loyalty and customer satisfaction using the SERVQUAL model for four main Islamic banks in the Sultanate of Oman. This is a quantitative nature of a study, which involved a structured, self-administered questionnaire based on a convenience sampling method gathering data from 120 customers of Islamic banks in Oman. The study data were analyzed using SPSS, and the reliability coefficient (Cronbach's alpha) was established. The correlation analysis examined the significant relationships among the study variables. The impact of service quality dimensions on customer satisfaction was captured through regression analysis. The key findings of the study revealed that the respondents showed on average an "Agree" response in the five areas, namely, tangibles, responsiveness, reliability, assurance, and empathy. The correlation results depicted a significant relationship between the three variables: service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty. Similarly, regression results demonstrated that empathy and responsiveness dimensions have a significant positive impact on customer satisfaction. It is, therefore, recommended that banks should focus more on empathy and responsiveness considering the significant relationship of these two variables on customer satisfaction. However, banks should not neglect the importance of other variables such as reliability, assurance, and tangibles that are revealed as important by responses of the participants for the bank's provisions.