The relationship between selected marketing mix elements and overall customer satisfaction in South African banks
Year: 2007
Type: article
Abstract: Yoo, Donthu and Lee (2000:208) conducted a study in the product market industry to determine what effect various selected marketing mix elements might have on brand equity. The findings indicated that to enhance the strength of a brand, organisations should invest in advertising, distribute through retail stores with a good image, increase distribution intensity and reduce price pro-motions. This research document attempted to follow a similar approach by exploring the relationship between selected marketing mix elements and the customer experience in a financial services environment. The study was based on Berry’s (1999:200) Service Branding model. This model indicates that the customer’s experience of a service influences brand meaning, and that brand meaning influences brand equity. The marketing mix elements tested were functional design (physical evidence), employee’s appearance and respons-iveness (people and process) and transaction fee charges (price). Factor analysis was performed to summarise the variables used into a smaller number of factors (Zikmund, 2003:586). Initially the study was based on using five factors, as indicated in the questionnaire. The factor analysis indicated that the five factors ’ eigen values were too low (below 0.3) to be meaningful factors, therefore all five factors were combined into one factor, called corporate identity. None of the original hypothesis could be tested as a result of this. To compensate for the inability to test the original hypotheses, various demographic aspects were used to test for possible differences in perceived service delivery. The results showed that various profiles of cultural and gender groups view brand image differently. This conclu-sion lead to a troublesome question as to what actually forms part of corporate or bank image and when do those factors not form part of corporate or bank image. Although the literature review indicated that various factors influence customer’s perception of service delivery, the results indicated the contrary.
Language: English
Subfield: Marketing
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W102747526