Impact of customer satisfaction on customer loyalty and intention to switch in commercial banking sector in Sri Lanka

Abstract

To obtain the competitive advantage in the dynamic financial industry, banks always concentrate on fulfilling their customers’ needs and demands. The current study attempts to find the impact of customer satisfaction on loyalty and intention to switch in the commercial banking sector in Sri Lanka. The population consists of customers of banks in Sri Lanka and the target population consists of customers of banks in the Colombo district. The sample is derived from the simple random sampling method and a questionnaire is used to collect primary data from 150 commercial bank customers. The dependent variable is intention to switch, the independent variable is customer satisfaction and the mediator variable is customer loyalty. The study reveals that customer satisfaction moderately affects customer loyalty and there is a negative relationship between customer satisfaction and switching intention. However, there is no impact of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty on switching intention. Also, other than customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, there are several other factors affecting the intention to switch. As per the findings of the study, there is no statistically significant association of age, gender, occupation, highest education level and marital status with customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and intention to switch. Monthly income level of the respondents also does not have a significant association with customer loyalty and intention to switch but there is a statistically significant association between income level and customer satisfaction. Finally, the study identified that customers are switching from the existing bank due to an external reason such as the existing bank not complying with some special request or to obtain some exclusive benefits at another bank.