Abstract

MACKAY, N  and  MAJOR, RK. Predictors of customer loyalty in the South African retail banking industry. JCMAN [online]. 2017, vol.14, n.1, pp.1194-1224. ISSN 1815-7440.

The South African retail banking industry is a highly competitive industry which has experienced an increase in customer attrition over the last three years, with a large number of customers showing intentions to leave their banks. Consequently, South African banks have begun to put more focus on the use of loyalty or loyalty programmes to ensure that customers are not easily tempted to switch banks. To this end, banks are investing billions of Rands on loyalty programmes with the aim of obtaining and keeping profitable customers. The aim of this article was to investigate service quality, trust, switching costs, and satisfaction as predictors of customer loyalty, in South African retail banks. A quantitative descriptive research approach was followed, implementing non-probability convenience and quota sampling. Data was collected by means of a self-administered questionnaire, which was distributed among South African retail bank (Absa, Capitec Bank, First National Bank (FNB), Nedbank and Standard Bank) customers in the Gauteng Province. Based on the results, this article proposes a framework that indicates how South African retail banks can attain loyalty through improving customer satisfaction, which is achieved by enhancing service quality, establishing trust among their customers, and minimising switching costs.

Keywords : banking industry; loyalty; relationship marketing; retail banking; satisfaction; service quality; switching costs; trust.

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