Measuring the quality of banking services targeting student population

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the quality of the banking services in a rather neglected context, i.e. quality of banking services that target the student population. The goals were: to highlight the importance of student population as in the long run profitable market for personal banking services, to determine whether there are significant differences between student perceptions of and expectations from the quality of banking services as well as which dimensions students find to be the most significant and which the least significant in assessing the quality of banking services. Design/methodology/approach – A summary of the theoretical framework is followed by the results of a research using the SERVQUAL instrument. Findings – Despite a steady increase in the number of students over the past few years, bank managers have not yet realized their full potential. The results point to a gap in the quality of the banking services on all five dimensions of the SERVQUAL model. It is necessary to improve the banking service on all dimensions, and particularly with regard to “reliability,” “assurance” and “responsiveness,” in which the gap was observed to be the largest. Research limitations/implications – The research used a convenient sample. Therefore, it is impossible to generalize research findings based on the data processed, but only point to their being indicative. Practical implications – Banks should by no means neglect the student population that possesses information knowledge, essential for the use of modern banking services. Bank managers should pay more attention to the needs of this growing segment of potential highly profitable customers. Originality/value – The necessity to provide a more flexible response to the needs and requirements of students as a target market segment is discussed, along with potential importance of this segment for banks’ future business operations.