Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty : A study of Swedbank's small corporate clients in Gothenburg

Abstract: The customer satisfaction and loyalty for Swedbank have in a recent study shown to be among the lowest for all banks in relation to corporate customers. Since there is not much interaction with small enterprises compared to mediumsized and large enterprises and a vast majority of customers are small corporations, there was a need to focus on this seg-ment and find what they believed was in need of improvement. This study was conducted in cooperation with Swedbank in Gothenburg. The authors worked as consultants with the base of the satisfaction and loyalty study conducted by SKI in October 2006 and performed a case study where 25 randomly chosen small enterprises in the Gothenburg-region were interviewed by telephone. The stated purpose of this thesis is to investigate what aspects of relationship quality and service quality Swedbank Gothenburg’s small corporate customers are not fully satisfied with and how to improve them to ensure customer satisfaction and loyalty. The authors developed a model called the customer loyalty model, identifying the drivers of Total Perceived Relationship Quality and Total Perceived Service Quality which in turn determine an organisation’s image. The image has an impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty. Four key areas where service failures might occur are the basis for the research questions: the performance of the account manager, the performance of other employees, perception of the bank and perception of the services provided. Further, a fifth research question was posed to answer how to improve the possible lack of satisfaction. Based on the empirical findings the authors could conclude that the customers should be the primary focus for Swedbank by developing a stronger serviceoriented culture. A way to improve the problem of the frequency of contact between corporate client and account manager is to divide small corporate clients into sub-groups according to their different needs. Furthermore, the account managers having interest in and knowledge about the corporate clients are of importance. This can be done by visiting clients at their place of business and have continuous education to develop the account managers’ competence. There is a need for customised solutions for different corporate clients and this could be achieved by keeping an on-going discussion with each client. Furthermore, the accessibility of the account managers and the length of the decision-making process need to be im-proved. This can be accomplished by for instance longer opening-hours and more frequent group meetings.