Measuring customer satisfaction of Saderat Kerman Bank using QFD method to improve service quality

Academic thesis for obtaining a master's degree in the field: business management, international business orientation

Abstract

The use of new quality engineering methods has been growing in recent years, so that industrial and service companies use these quality engineering methods to produce and provide their products and services in accordance with the changing demands of customers. One of these methods that collects customer demands through customer calls and translates them into service features is QFD, which today It is used in service industries.

In this research, which measured the satisfaction of Kerman Export Bank customers using the QFD method to improve service quality, while receiving feedback from customers, according to their demands, we provide a series of solutions to bring the services closer to customers, which improves services and also results in their satisfaction. In terms of descriptive research method, this research is from the field branch and in terms of purpose, it is applied-case type and it was done during the steps that will be mentioned. First, by preparing a customer call table and by directly interviewing a number of well-known customers of the bank, we collected the demands of the customers and designed the most frequent demands in the form of a questionnaire. In the final stage, after the analysis of the questionnaires, the level of customer satisfaction of Saderat Kerman Bank was calculated through SPSS software. In the current research, we used the three-stage QFD model and with the help of QFD matrices, we ranked the importance of demands from the customer's point of view, service characteristics, strategies and solutions, which are as follows: among the 19 demands identified by customers through interviews, 1. The way personnel deal with customers, 2. Speed ??in providing bank services and 3. Accuracy and accuracy of the services provided by the bank, among the 14 service features identified by the focus group, 1. Specific work procedures, 2. Facilities, programs and advanced information systems and self-control and 3. Sufficient and skilled personnel to provide services in the least possible time, among the 24 strategies identified by the focus group, 1. Interviews with banking industry experts, 2. Searching about working procedures and systems used in banks in advanced countries and 3. Visiting working procedures and facilities and services and systems used in competing banks, and among the 21 solutions identified by the focus group, 1. Providing all kinds of services electronically, 2. finding standard and simple methods of working without additional bureaucracy and 3. flexibility in the methods of providing services, are of priority importance. Finally, this research shows that the satisfaction of Kerman Bank Saderat customers with the quality of the services provided is equal to 73%. overtake One of the new marketing philosophies called customer orientation states that the customer should be the center of attention and look at issues from the customer's point of view. Today, along with the changes that occur in life, the demands and needs of human beings are also subject to change, therefore the managers of organizations must be well acquainted with all aspects of these demands and needs in order to be able to present their products and services in such a way that they are subject to customers and to be able to attract customer satisfaction, which is one of the common terms in the environment today. In order to satisfy the customers, the service industries are undergoing transformation and innovators in these industries are looking for new solutions to meet the needs of the customers, so that by improving their products and services, they can attract the customer's opinion and take over a larger share of the market. Since the distribution of quality services is an important and basic strategy in organizations, now many organizations adhere to this strategy and put it at the top of things, and if an organization cannot meet the expectations of its customers, it will not have a place in this competitive environment. and will be automatically removed from this list.The banking system is one of the important economic components of every country and has a heavy responsibility, and despite the great diversity that has emerged in banks, the managers of these organizations are aware that a satisfied customer is loyal and returns to his institution, but an unsatisfied customer is not like this, so it can be concluded that good service quality causes customer retention, customer satisfaction, attracting new customers, improving financial performance and profitability, and it can be said that there is a strong and obvious relationship between these factors. Also, customers' desire to use offline, electronic and other banking services, as well as saving time, guides the customer towards banks that offer these services more and better, so managers must identify their customers' demands and needs well and provide their services in line with customer orientation. Talking about the measurement of a concept such as customer satisfaction is reminiscent of Lord Kelvin's valuable words[1]. This great scientist has stated: "When you can measure something and describe it numerically, it represents your science and knowledge about it. But when you cannot describe something quantitatively, your knowledge about it is insufficient. You may have some knowledge about that phenomenon, but you can hardly claim that you have knowledge about that phenomenon" (Ya Qian and Kanji, 2001). However, it can never be ignored that the main driving force for business organizations that are looking for major improvements in their progress are the customers of that organization. In other words, no business can survive without customers. Therefore, it is very important for every business organization to have a framework for understanding, analyzing and evaluating the situation of its customers (Luskiw and McDougall [2], 1996). Today, strategic and commercial policies are focused on maintaining and improving customer loyalty and increasing trust in the organization, whereas before, focusing on attracting new customers was the main policy of the organization. The most important reasons for such changes are increasing awareness and public information of companies regarding the favorable consequences of customer satisfaction and loyalty. Companies that have acquired a larger share of loyal customers in this way have increased the profitability of the organization due to several reasons, including high repurchase rates, reduction of advertising costs due to the involvement of customers in word-of-mouth advertising, reduction of the desire to change and change the source of purchasing goods and services (Kotler[3] et al., 2001). In recent years, a lot has been published on the application of total quality management (TQM). This has received wide attention in the last decade, which indicates that industrial and service organizations are thinking of a way to compete and increase their efficiency. The successful use of [4] TQM in industrial and service organizations shows the obvious advantage of this method to reach a desired level of quality from the customer's point of view (Rangebran et al., 2013). In today's competitive market, methods can guarantee the success of the organization that can explain the customers' demands and include them in the design of the product or service. Competitive advantages use different techniques and tools, one of these management and quality techniques that has enabled the interaction between the production, marketing and sales departments is the QFD technique. [5] QFD is one of the quality engineering methods that can be called as a machine translating "customers' needs" to "technical and engineering specifications" or in other words, this technique identifies the market and customers of the product, examines and analyzes it, and while identifying the customers' demands and needs, tries to consider them in It has all stages of design and production. QFD has been used efficiently in many production and service organizations in the last few years and has shown its positive performance. In recent years, the countries of America, Japan and Europe have used QFD for their industrial and service organizations and have achieved positive results in the field of customer orientation. Therefore, due to the fact that Saderat Kerman Bank has chosen a customer-oriented strategy as its strategy, in order to increase the level of customer satisfaction, it identified them in order to obtain comprehensive information about their needs and demands, and using the QFD method to convert these needs into operational requirements, and while implementing this method, it also measures the level of customer satisfaction with the services provided.