Customer Loyalty in an Internet Banking Context

Abstract: The importance of Internet in banking increases as more people use Internet as their main channel in contacts with their bank. This poses both possibilities and threats to the bank and having loyal customers become more important. To enhance our understanding of customer loyalty in an Internet banking context we have made interviews and constructed a questionnaire, based on a theoretical ground consisting of loyalty and some concepts related to loyalty. The respondent rate was low, but we still mean that we can outline some tendencies on customer loyalty through this material. During this research we have come to the conclusion that a deep understanding of the concepts constructing loyalty and cross-analyses of these, are inevitable for the understanding of how loyalty develops. We have found differences in attitudes and behaviour among customers depending on what communication channels they use, and the interviewed bank is also convinced that Internet should be used as a complementary channel to branch banking. Most customers are as a whole quite satisfied with their bank and intend to stay with it, but we have also found spurious customers that consider leaving despite feeling satisfied and recommending their bank to friends.