The results of this research show that in all fivefold dimensions of service quality and also in total, customers’ expectations are beyond their perceptions of the bank performance. In fact, findings of this research show that although in all fivefold dimensions of service quality Sepah Bank’s performance has been higher than average limit, but its service quality does not satisfy customers’ expectations.
Also, it was expected that service quality would be one of the determinants of satisfaction and loyalty. In fact, nearly 43 percent of customer’s satisfaction change is explained by service quality. On the other hand, service quality has a direct relation with loyalty, and nearly 45 percent of loyalty changes can be explained by service quality changes. Another point is that if the satisfaction variable enters the model, the resulted determination index will be higher in figure than other cases (0.803). This figure means that nearly 80 percent of loyalty changes can be explained by satisfaction and service quality, although satisfaction plays a more important role in this relation.
In addition, findings of this research show that there is a positive and meaningful relation among all fivefold dimensions of service quality with satisfaction and loyalty, which in both cases assurance and tangibles have the most and the least relation with satisfaction and loyalty. In other words, it sees that tangibles can be considered as health factors, and assurance as motivational factor. In addition, the fivefold dimensions of service quality can be observed from another point of view. In fact, these dimensions can be divided into two more general dimensions of resulted and processed. The resulted dimension includes reliability dimension, and the processed dimension includes other dimensions (tangibles, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy). Findings of this part too, show that both resulted and processed dimensions have a positive and meaningful relation with satisfaction and loyalty. But the important point is that there is significant relation between the processed dimensions and satisfaction and loyalty.
This point is important because although the final output may not satisfy customer’s satisfaction, but it does not necessarily mean customer’s dissatisfaction. In fact, service encounter plays an important role in customer’s satisfaction and loyalty. Considering the above mentioned findings, the Bank’s manager should try to gradually reduce the gaps in the first step, and should attempt to make this gap positive, and to surpass customers’ expectations, in the next step.