32 International Journal of Customer Relationship Marketing and Management, 5(3), 32-48, July-September 2014 Customer Satisfaction via Service Quality Dimensions: An Empirical Research on Stock Broking Services: CS VIA SQD Gyaneshwar Singh Kushwaha, Maulana Azad National Institute Of Technology (MANIT), Bhopal, India Shiv Ratan Agrawal, Maulana Azad National Institute Of Technology (MANIT), Bhopal, India ABSTRACT The purpose of the study is to measure the customer satisfaction via service quality dimensions as a whole and individually in the context of stock broking services. A non probability convenient sampling approach has been used in the study. Respondents have been restricted to those who have the experience of trading in stock market through stock brokers. The sample consisted of 229 valid individual customers from Bhopal (MP), India through structured self-administrated questionnaire. Convergent validity, discriminant validity and reliability of the collected data were measured before testing of the research model. An exploratory factor analysis has been conducted using principal components analysis to determine the dimensions of inancial service quality. A linear regression was performed to test the relationship between the service quality dimensions and customer satisfaction. The indings suggest that service quality as a whole and individually have a signiicant impact on customer satisfaction. The results of the study provide useful information for managers to improve service quality which leads to customer satisfaction. The indings were solely on stock broking services from Bhopal (MP) in India which impacts its generalisability. Replication of the present study might be required in other stock broking markets, to improve generalisability using larger samples. Another potential area for future research could be the link between service quality dimensions, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty and customer retention at stock broking services. The study is important considering the economic advantages of satisfying and retaining current customers as opposed to seeking for new customers which is essential in stock broking services. The paper contributes to the literature on stock broking services in India. Keywords: Bhopal (MP), Customer Satisfaction, Service Quality, Stock Broking Services 1. INTRODUCTION Service quality and customer satisfaction are the most important factors of market competition for service providers (Zeithaml et al., 1996; Parasuraman et al., 1988; McDougall & Levesque, 2000). In the current market scenario, delivering high quality and keeping customers satisfied is viewed as critical for survival. That is why these factors are on high management priorities (Parasuraman, 1997; Wang et al., 2004; Olorunniwo & Hsu, 2006). This is the DOI: 10.4018/ijcrmm.2014070103 Copyright © 2014, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. International Journal of Customer Relationship Marketing and Management, 5(3), 32-48, July-September 2014 33 most acceptable statement that service quality leads to higher levels of customer satisfaction. Financial institutions and their strategies are becoming more focussed on service quality to increase customer satisfaction and run the business successfully (Arasli et al., 2005; AlHawari et al., 2009). Increasing expectations of customers from stock broking services have led firms and their managers to become customer focused, which has resulted in the introduction of customer care initiatives with value added services in order to improve the quality of services. Until recently, no study has found that could challenge the assumption that service quality dominates the determination of customer satisfaction in the provision of services. The essential presence of service quality in financial services is well known (Levesque & McDougall, 1996; Jamal & Naser, 2002; Al-Hawari & Ward, 2006; Pass, 2005). A competition has been established within the brokers operating in India. They are serving with advanced services to their customers. The stock broking industry is passing through a phase of customers market. Any broking firm that wishes either to grow the size of its business or improve its profitability must consider the challenges surrounding its customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is quite a complex issue and it is also responsible for customer retention and customer loyalty and hence for company’s performance. Customer satisfaction is an important concept for financial performance and has been repeatedly confirmed (Gruca & Rego, 2005). There is always a possibility that a dis-satisfied customer starts searching for another stock broking firm offering similar services, resulting in a break in the relationship with the existing firm. TARP (1981) suggested one dis-satisfied customer tells his perception or experience to other customers or to spread negative word of mouth (WOM) to 9-10 people. Gronroos (1990) found that acquiring a prospective customer costs 6 times more, than retaining one existing customer. He also claimed that 5% increase in retention of customers may save up to 18% cost. A two percent enhancement of customer retention can lead to a ten percent reduction of overhead costs, which in turn improves the financial performance (Jamieson, 1994). Therefore, all efforts must be put in to retain a customer to achieve reduction in expenses. On the other hand, liberalisation and deregulation of financial market have opened multidimensional growth opportunities for the financial service providers. It has also provided more profitable investment opportunities to the investors to invest their money in more diversified range of products with advanced technology and value added services. This accelerates the competitive environment for every business firm to ensure maximum satisfaction to their customers. Because of this competitive environment customers have more choices in choosing their service providers (Saunders and Watters, 1993). In stock broking services, customer satisfaction mainly depends on the process of service delivery a fact that highlights the important role of the dimensions of service quality. In a service industry like stock broking, the quality of customer services holds primary significance, particularly in the context of sustained business growth of the firm. The subject of important dimensions of service quality has come to the forefront of service management research over the last several decades (Barringer, 2008). With the above thoughts, many researchers and marketers have investigated the links between service quality and customer satisfaction (Pantouvakis, 2010; Yap & Sweeney, 2007). Several studies have examined the significance of service quality as a whole and individual by academics and practitioners in different service sector (e.g., Dukart, 1998; Leal & Pereira, 2003; Umbrell, 2003; Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry, 1985, 1988). The above mentioned researchers team also developed SERVQUAL (Parasuraman et al., 1988), an instrument which played a pivotal role in measuring service quality (Ladhari, 2009). There have been various studies investigating service quality dimensions and their impact on all service sectors. Specifically, a large number of studies paying attention to banking, insurance, mutual fund markets and loans in the literature whereas no prior research Copyright © 2014, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. 34 International Journal of Customer Relationship Marketing and Management, 5(3), 32-48, July-September 2014 has measured the customers satisfaction of stock broking services via service quality, to the best of authors’ knowledge. The paper aims to fill this gap in the literature. Therefore, the objective of the study is to measure the customer satisfaction via service quality dimensions as a whole and individually in the context of stock broking services. More specifically, the study uses service quality dimensions as a predictor of customer satisfaction (Gronroos, 1990). The research also highlights the most important service quality parameters among five dimensions towards stock broking services. This perspective may improve the managerial understanding between service quality dimensions and customer satisfaction in the context of stock broking services. The rest of the paper proceeds as follows: section two presents the conceptual framework and hypotheses of the study. In section three, the implemented methodology is described. The data analysis and findings of the study are given in section four and in section five conclusion and the managerial implications of the study are presented. Finally, section six includes some limitations and proposals for future research. 2. CONCEPTUAL BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESES DEVELOPMENT 2.1. Stock Broking Services Dun and Bradstreet India (D & B India) investigated comprehensive findings on the Indian stock broking services through the publication India’s Leading Equity Broking Houses 2013. The following are some of the key findings: • • • The stock broking firms considered for the study had a total of 62, 332 trading terminals, 11,270 offices, and 47,428 employees across the country. Around 40% of the companies earned total 250 mn as on FY13. income below Nearly 32% of the companies were trading in three segments including cash, deriva- • • • • • tives and currency, futures and options segments during FY13. Out of the total client accounts added during FY13, nearly 82% of the clients were added through e-broking accounts. During FY13, trading turnover in the cash segment came down by around 8% YOY whereas trading turnover in derivative segment increased by around 14% YOY. More than 50% of the companies expect BSE Sensex to reach and hover in the range of 20,000 to 25,000 ranges by end-FY14. Mobile broking, research services, and online discount broking are the top emerging products and services in the Indian stock broking industry. In terms of key focus areas during the next two years, client retention and acquisition emerged as the top most priority. (Source: Dun & Bradstreet India, India’s Leading Equity Broking Houses 2013) During the last decades stock broking firms have encountered difficulties in their offerings and services, and thus also, in keeping increasing their market share. This represents a paradigm change in the financial market and its products and services. The process of deregulation and technological development has altered the traditional stock broking market. These situations indicate a threat and at the same time, an opportunity to stock brokers. It opens up the possibilities of offering customers a more integrated range of services with advanced technology. Because the customer focus is on the process of service delivery rather than the service itself. A stockbroker is a regulated professional individual, usually associated with a brokerage firm who buys and sells shares and other financial securities behalf of for both retail and institutional clients through a stock exchange. Stockbrokers are known by numerous professional designations, depending on the license they hold, the type of securities they sell, or the services they provide. Professional titles similar to that of stockbroker included investment advisor or financial advisor. Some brokers Copyright © 2014, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. International Journal of Customer Relationship Marketing and Management, 5(3), 32-48, July-September 2014 35 only conduct transactions while others also offer different types of investment advisory services. Brokers derive their profit as a commission on trades done by their clients. They usually collect a percentage of the value of each transaction or some charges as a flat fee. Clients may order for buy or sell shares in a variety of ways through their brokers. One may call on the telephone for trading or may trade online by e-broking. On account of technological revolution at present products and services are offered to take care of the element of “speed and time” like Internet, mobile and SMS trading facilities etc. Because of the intense competition in the financial market, many customers are not only perceiving but also expecting better services. Perception of good services would relate to courtesy, promptness, employee attitudes, physical facilities, customer identification and recognition, speed, clarity and communication skills and a host of such features. The emerging needs of stock broking customers are ample evidence of changing customer profile and their expectations. At present scenario customer buys his ultimate satisfaction, not only the product or service. Today’s customer is an active seeker of value-evidence (prompt service with full value). He dwells more on the promise of satisfaction made by brokers. A special bonding is required between broker and customer. Once the customer trust is gained, his chances of switching to another company become relatively less. This competitive advantage can be achieved through the improved service quality which leads to customer satisfaction and then financial performance. It requires a special emphasis on five dimensions of service quality. That is why the present research work includes different parameters of service quality such as tangibility, responsiveness, empathy, assurance, and reliability to measure the customer satisfaction of stock broking services. Due to the scarcity of literature on stock broking services all above mentioned information about them were based on the observation and informal discussion with stock brokers and customers when the data had collected. 2.2. Service Quality Customers may patronise towards their financial service providers on a long-term basis if they are improving service quality on priority (Lymperopoulos et al., 2006). Gronroos (1984) and Parasuraman et al. (1985) defined service quality as “a client judgment where he compares his expectations with the actual delivery in each service dimension”. Lewis and Booms (1983) were perhaps the first to define service quality as “a measure of how well the service level delivered matches the customer’s expectations” (Parasuraman et al., 1985). Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1985) determined ten dimensions in assessing service quality. In 1988, they reached on the common themes and condensed the dimensions down to main five as mentioned in Table 1. The best well known measurement instrument of service quality is SERVQUAL scale introduced by Parasuraman et al., (1988). It has been rigorously studied and widely applied in different sectors of service marketing since its introduction (Gilbert & Wong, 2003; Saleh & Ryan, 1991; Vandamme & Leunis, 1993; Avkiran, 1994; Babakus & Boller, 1992; Buttle, 1996; Cronin & Taylor, 1992; Fick & Ritchie, 1991; Newman, 2001; Smith, 1995). Despite the critics about the number and composition of service quality parameters (Brown et al., 1993; Carman, 1990; Cronin & Taylor, 1992), the SERVQUAL instrument is still a valid and useful tool for measuring service quality in service marketing (Buttle, 1996; Wong & Sohal, 2003). According to Parasuraman et al. (2005) the five parameters of service quality capture the general domain of service quality fairly well. 2.3. Service Quality and Financial Services Several researchers and academicians have been applying of the five dimensions of SERVQUAL scale in financial sectors such as banking, insurance, mutual funds, financial securities, pension, mortgages, etc. (Arasli et al., 2005; Olorunniwo & Hsu, 2006; Kumar et al., 2009). Copyright © 2014, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. 36 International Journal of Customer Relationship Marketing and Management, 5(3), 32-48, July-September 2014 Table 1. Five main dimensions of service quality (SERVQUAL) S.No. Dimension Definition (Parasuraman et al., 1988) 1 Tangibility The physical facilities, equipment and appearance of a firm’s employees. 2 Responsiveness Willingness to help customers and provide quick service. 3 Empathy Caring and personalized attention provided by the service firm. 4 Assurance The knowledge and courtesy of a firm’s employees and their ability to inspire trust and confidence. 5 Reliability The ability of service firms to perform the promised service dependably and accurately. The following research studies widely utilised the SERVQUAL scale in financial service sectors as mentioned in Table 2. Reimer and kuehn (2005) indicated that physical quality i.e. tangibility is a directly observable variable by the customers and has a significant influence on intangible dimensions of service quality prior to the purchase. The service quality on the basis of tangibility such as equipment, physical layout, buildings, communication materials, etc influenced customers (Bitner, 1990, 1992). Nguyen (2006) suggested that servicescape may consider two types of needs: operational and marketing. Operations are important to improving employee performance such as responsiveness and empathy, while marketing significantly influences customer beliefs i.e. reliability and assurance. Reliability was mainly associated with the outcome of service whereas tangibility, responsiveness, assurance and empathy were significantly associated with the delivery of service process (Parasuraman et al., 1991). Therefore, the role of quality of service dimensions in financial services cannot be underestimated. Due to similar nature of services and surrounding environment it is concluded that five main dimensions which customers use in evaluating service quality such as tangibles, responsiveness, empathy, assurance, and reliability identified by Parasuraman et al. (1988) are also an important scale for measuring customer satisfaction in stock broking services. 2.4. Customer Satisfaction Customer satisfaction is an important factor for firm’s financial performance. Financial institutions need to maintain long-term stable Table 2. The SERVQUAL dimensions for the financial services S.No. Dimension Author and Year Total Number Of Citations 1 Tangibility Bitner (1990); Parasuraman et al. (1991); Bitner (1992); Yavas et al. (1997); Wakefield & Blodgett (1999); Bahia & Nantel (2000); Arasli et al. (2005) 7 2 Responsiveness Parasuraman et al. (1985); Parasuraman et al. (1991); Yavas et al. (1997); Yang & Jun (2002); Baumann et al. (2007) 5 3 Empathy Parasuraman et al. (1985); Parasuraman et al. (1991); Mouawad & Kleiner (1996); Yavas et al. (1997); Baumann et al. (2007) 5 4 Assurance Parasuraman et al. (1991); Zhou (2004); Arasli et al. (2005); Baumann et al. (2007) 4 5 Reliability Crosby et al. (1990); Parasuraman et al. (1991); Zhou (2004); Arasli et al. (2005); Baumann et al. (2007) 5 Copyright © 2014, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. International Journal of Customer Relationship Marketing and Management, 5(3), 32-48, July-September 2014 37 and close relationships with their clients. It is the way of expression or attitude of a consumer toward a product or service after the consumption (Solomon, 1996; Wells & Prensky, 2002; Metawa & Almossawi, 1998). Oliver (1980) defined customer satisfaction as the difference between an individual’s expectations before the consumption of a product or service and the actual experience that results the consumption. It expressed the sense of fulfillment (Vesel & Zabkar, 2009), that a customer expresses after having interacted with a firm (Wu, 2011). Ladhari et al. (2011) suggested customer satisfaction as the evaluation that occurs after the consumption of a product or service. A strong association between customer satisfaction and behavioral variables such as customer loyalty and customer retention has been widely proved by among researchers (LilJander & Strandvik, 1995; Ravald & Gronroos, 1996). It is identified that customer satisfaction is the predictor of customer loyalty (Vesel & Zabkar, 2009; Akhter et al., 2011) and result in better financial performance of the firm (Bernhardt et al., 2000; Chi & Gursoy, 2009; Fathollahzadeh et al., 2011). It is assumed that a high degree of customer satisfaction leads to increases in repurchase patronage among current customers and enhance firm’s market reputation (Augustyn & Ho, 1998; Weber, 1997; WTO, 1988, 1995). The complex nature of services coupled with the growing province of the stock broking industry has increased the need of customer satisfaction. It is an important part of the financial service sector (Mishkin, 2001). 2.5. Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction A high degree of significant association has been found between service quality and customer satisfaction (Oliva et al., 1992). Some researchers have the opinion that service quality and customer satisfaction are synonymous (Rust & Oliver, 1994). But the literature about them has evidence that both are different but correlated (Al-Hawari & Ward, 2006). Some researchers have also found considerable distinctions between them (Bitner & Hubbert, 1994). Different opinions have been expressed about the service quality and customer satisfaction in literature. Cronin and Taylor (1994) suggested that service quality as an impacting factor on customer satisfaction and long-term repeat buying decision. The specified service quality is an independent variable and customer satisfaction is a dependent variable which is also the base of present study (Jamal & Naser, 2002; Ting, 2004; Parker & Mathews, 2001). The influence of each service quality dimensions on customer satisfaction and perceived value investigate by Yap and Sweeney (2007). Quality, as such should not be measured, its features directly influence customer satisfaction which can be measured (Gronroos, 2001). Many empirical studies proved that a causal link between service quality as a whole and customer satisfaction (Anderson & Sullivan, 1993; Bolton & Drew, 1991; Cronin & Taylor, 1992). Some researchers also investigated the significant and strong link between different dimensions of service quality and customer satisfaction in the context of financial service sector (Arasli et al., 2005; Yavas et al., 1997; Zhou, 2004; Baumann et al., 2007). Based on the wide and in-depth study of the existing literature, the present study is aim to measure the customer satisfaction via service quality and its parameters in the context of stock broking services (Figure 1). Therefore, the hypotheses for the study are developed as: H1: There is a significant positive relationship between tangibility of service delivery and customer satisfaction. H2: There is a significant positive relationship between responsiveness of service delivery and customer satisfaction. H3: There is a significant positive relationship between empathy of service delivery and customer satisfaction. H4: There is a significant positive relationship between assurance of service delivery and customer satisfaction. H5: There is a significant positive relationship between reliability of service delivery and customer satisfaction. Copyright © 2014, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. 38 International Journal of Customer Relationship Marketing and Management, 5(3), 32-48, July-September 2014 Figure 1. Shows the conceptual framework of the study H6: There is a significant positive relationship between overall service quality and customer satisfaction. 3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1. Sample and Data Collection The study was conducted using quantitative approaches. A survey questionnaire developed to gather descriptive data of the customers from stock broking services in Bhopal (MP) about model parameters (Table 3). Table no. 3.1.1 shows the list of stock brokers from where the respondents were availing the services. Revised questionnaire included two parts suggested by the two subject experts. First part included ten close ended questions. From first to nine, the questions were related to the quality of services and tenth question was related to the customer satisfaction in the case of stock broking services. In second part, the general information of the respondents was covered. Respondents were assured of confidentiality. A convenient sampling technique was used in the study. Most of the questionnaires were distributed among Bhopal due to time constrains. From the 300 questionnaires that were distributed, 240 were retrieved. Of the 240 responses, 11 questionnaires were discarded due to incomplete information. Therefore, a total of 229 valid responses were obtained, yielding a response rate of over 76 percent. 3.2. Measures The proposed research work was based on the two factors i.e. service quality and its dimensions and customer satisfaction. Both were adopted from the literature. The service quality dimension was referred from Parasuraman (1985, 1988) consisting of five constructs such as tangibles, responsiveness, empathy, assurance, and reliability. Each item was measured using a five-point Likert-type scale from strongly Copyright © 2014, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. International Journal of Customer Relationship Marketing and Management, 5(3), 32-48, July-September 2014 39 Table 3. List of the stock broking firms S.No. Name of the Firm Frequency 1 Sharekhan 24 2 Angel Broking 25 3 Kotak Securities 15 4 Bonanja 2 5 SMC Global 14 6 India Infoline Ltd. 8 7 ICICI Direct. Com 14 8 Indiabulls Securities 5 9 Reliance Money 16 10 Kalptaru Multipliers 20 11 Karvy Stock Broking 10 12 Bajaj Capital 4 13 Money Control 6 14 Capital Securities 3 15 Nirman Stock Broking 16 16 UTI Securities 1 17 SBI Securities 4 18 Mansukh 3 19 Religare 17 20 Motilalt Oswal 7 21 Alpha Financial Services 2 22 Geojit BNP Paribas 1 23 Alankit 6 24 Aditya Birla Money 3 25 Astha Securities 3 disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). Participants were asked to indicate their level of agreement with each statement. A linear regression analysis using SPSS (Version 16) software was used to test the research hypotheses. 4. DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS 4.1. Demographic Information Table 4 shows the breakdown of the sample by gender, age, educational attainment as well as occupation. The respondents consisted of 84.8% (194) males and 15.2% (35) were females. It is interesting to emphasise that the majority of participants (181, 79%) were between 21 and 40 years old and 18% (41) in the age group of 41 to 60 years old. Of the total participants, 46% (105) possessed a graduate degree and more than a third was about post graduate (90, 39%). Most of the respondents (84, 36.7%) were from the service, followed by businessman, 21.3% (49) and then self-employed, 15% (34). The students, professionals and house wives were also the significance participants with 11% (25), Copyright © 2014, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. 40 International Journal of Customer Relationship Marketing and Management, 5(3), 32-48, July-September 2014 8.7% (20) and 6% (14) respectively. Figure 2 shows the graphical presentation of occupation of the respondents in percentage. 4.2. Scale Validation 4.2.1 Factor Analysis Factor analysis is used to discard the number of items contained in an instrument into a more composite scale based on the relationships established between the initial items (Hair et al, 2009). It gives the chance to uncover latent structures by grouping the items already observed in an instrument. Variables that load on one factor should have the value greater than 0.5 that explain the variance according to a high percentage. Before applying of factor analysis, a preliminary statistical test, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) index accompanied by the Bartlett’s test should be applied in order to examine if data are intercorrelated. The KMO test has to have value higher than 0.5 and the Bartlett’s test has to be significant at the level of P < 0.05. In Table 5, the KMO index for the service quality scale is 0.798 with Bartlett’s test significant at P < 0.05. The items are inter-correlated and the factor analysis is suitable to be performed. An exploratory factor analysis has been conducted using principal components analysis with varimax rotation utilised to determine the dimensions of financial service quality. In factor analysis, only factors with eigenvalues greater than one were retained. As shown in the Table 6 the items are properly loaded into their corresponding dimensions with factor loadings of greater than 0.5. The AVE of all constructs ranged exceeding the threshold of 0.5. Table 4. Profile of respondents Demographic Characteristics Gender Age Education Occupation Data Frequency Percentage Male 194 84.8 Female 35 15.2 Below 20 3 1.3 21 – 40 181 79 41 – 60 41 18 Above 60 4 1.7 Illiterate 0 0 Literate 16 7 Undergraduate 18 8 Graduate 105 46 Postgraduate 90 39 Service 84 36.7 Professional 20 8.7 Self-employed 34 15 House Wife 14 6 Businessman 49 21.3 Agriculturist 0 0 Students 25 11 Pensioner 3 1.3 Copyright © 2014, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. International Journal of Customer Relationship Marketing and Management, 5(3), 32-48, July-September 2014 41 Figure 2. Occupation of the respondents (in percentage) Table 5. KMO and Bartlett’s test Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy. .798 Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity Approx. Chi-Square 400.769 Df 45 Sig. .000 In Addition, convergent and discriminant analysis were also conducted to assess the validity of measurement model. Convergent validity is the degree to which factors that are supposed to measure a single construct, agree with each other (John & Benet-Martinez, 2000). Convergent validity is considered by factor loadings; which should be significant and exceed 0.5 (Sheth & Shainesh, 2001), composite reliabilities that should be higher than 0.6 (Bagozzi & Yi, 1988), and the average variance extracted (AVE) that should be above 0.5 (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). Factor loadings range from 0.50 to 0.66 and all composite reliabilities are above 0.6. Moreover, the AVE ranges from 0.50 to 0.66 meaning that the model meets convergent validity criteria. The internal reliability of scales by Cronbach’s alpha was higher than 0.7 for all constructs (Hair et al., 1998). If alpha cronbach is closer to 1, it means that the data are more reliable (Brown, 2002). The overall Cronbach’s alpha was also calculated based on the total items of the instruments in Table 7, which has the greater value than 0.7. It can be concluded that data is reliable enough to be processed. In the model, all the factor loadings, composite reliabilities, and AVE fall in the recommended extents. Therefore, the five dimension structure of financial service quality instrument is acceptable (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994). Discriminant validity is the degree to which, factors that are supposed to measure a specific construct do not predict conceptually Copyright © 2014, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. 42 International Journal of Customer Relationship Marketing and Management, 5(3), 32-48, July-September 2014 Table 6. Factor analysis of service quality and customer satisfaction Dimension Factor Loading 1. Tangibility (T1) The physical facilities of broking firm are visually good 0.63 (T2) Firm is providing services with advanced technology 0.53 2. Responsiveness (R1) Firm is responding quickly to customers’ problem 0.51 (R2) Firm understands specific customers’ investment needs 0.50 3. Empathy (E1) Employees of the broking firm are willing to help 0.63 (E2) Employees are polite 0.50 (E3) Employees are giving personal attention 0.60 4. Assurance (A1) Firm is doing the same whatever they are promising Cronbach’s 0.69 0.58 0.74 0.70 0.50 0.75 0.68 0.58 0.74 0.72 0.54 0.75 0.71 0.57 0.75 0.69 0.66 0.73 0.57 6. Customer satisfaction (S1) Satisfaction of the overall services of the broking firm AVE 0.54 5. Reliability (R3) Firm is safe and reliable in all the service related matters Composite Reliability 0.66 Note: AVE= Average Variance Extracted, α= Cronbach’s alpha Table 7. Reliability analysis Reliability Statistics Cronbach’s Alpha No. of Items 0.765 10 unrelated criteria (John & Benet-Martinez, 2000). Fornell and Larcker (1981) suggested the average variance extracted for each construct should be higher than the squared correlation between the construct and any of the other constructs. Table 8 indicates that the measurement model of the present study has satisfactory discriminant validity. 4.3. Testing the Research Model 4.3.1. Regression Analysis The linear regression approach proposed by Baron and Kenny (1986) was applied to test the research hypotheses. In order to test the effects of the service quality variables including tangibility, responsiveness, empathy, assurance Copyright © 2014, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. International Journal of Customer Relationship Marketing and Management, 5(3), 32-48, July-September 2014 43 Table 8. Discriminant analysis DIMENSIONS 1 Tangibility 0.58* 2 3 4 5 Responsiveness 0.31 0.50* Empathy 0.37 0.42 0.58* Assurance 0.23 0.30 0.36 0.54* Reliability 0.44 0.21 0.30 0.29 0.57* Customer Satisfaction 0.32 0.38 0.45 0.28 0.29 6 0.66* Note: *Diagonal elements are AVE; Off-Diagonal elements are the squared correlations between constructs; For Discriminant validity, the diagonal elements should be higher than respective off-Diagonal elements. and reliability on customer satisfaction in stock broking services, regression analysis was conducted. Customer satisfaction was considered as a dependent variable and five service quality dimensions were as independent variables. As shown in Table 9, the results show that there were positive and significant relationship between service quality dimensions (tangibility, responsiveness, empathy, assurance, and reliability) and customer satisfaction in the context of stock broking services. The all five dimensions of service quality are significant at p < 0.05, thus H1 – H5 are accepted. In order to test the relationship between overall service quality and customer satisfaction, regression analysis was conducted, separately. As shown in Table 10 based on the analysis, the result shows that there is a positive and significant relationship between overall service quality and customer satisfaction. The hypothesis is significant at p < 0.05, thus H6 is accepted. 5. CONCLUSION AND MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS Customer satisfaction has long been recognised as a key to success and survives in today’s competitive business environment. There are several studies conducted to measure customer satisfaction in banking and financial industry. In India, not much research has been conducted to study customer satisfaction in stock broking or related to stock market activities. While it says that stock market is a mirror of economy. The objective of the study has been to measure the customer satisfaction via service quality dimensions as a whole and individually in the context of stock broking services. The study also highlighted the important components of service quality in the same context. The study is consistent with Bolton and Drew (1991) and Cronin and Taylor (1992), whose studies have found that service quality parameters as an overall and each of them are positively and directly associated with customer satisfaction. It means that service quality is an inseparable part from customer satisfaction towards successful business in present economy which is similar to findings of the following researchers (Parasuraman et al., 1991, 1988; Othman & Owen, 2002; Arasly et al., 2005). Among service quality components empathy has the greater impact on customer satisfaction based on the regression analysis in table no. 4.3.1, where the beta value (0.445) is high compare to others. This finding is consisted with the Estiri et al., (2011) research. Moreover, responsiveness (0.381), tangibility (0.321), reliability, and assurance in order follow empathy. These findings of the study differs from the results of Parasuraman et al. (1991, 1998), Amin and Isa (2008) and Al-Tamimi and Al-Amiri (2003) studies which suggested that reliability is the most important factor. The results of the study disclosed the importance of service quality dimensions in stock broking services, and this attribute comprises Copyright © 2014, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. 44 International Journal of Customer Relationship Marketing and Management, 5(3), 32-48, July-September 2014 Table 9. Regression analysis results between service quality dimensions and customer satisfaction Hypothesis Beta Std Error t-value Sig. Conclusion H1: Tangibility Customer Satisfaction 0.321 0.074 5.102 0.000* Supported H2: Responsiveness Customer Satisfaction 0.381 0.071 6.205 0.000* Supported H3: Empathy Customer Satisfaction 0.445 0.074 7.491 0.000* Supported H4: Assurance Customer Satisfaction 0.281 0.059 4.412 0.000* Supported H5: Reliability Customer Satisfaction 0.294 0.060 4.633 0.000* Supported Note: *p < 0.05, Dependent Variable = Customer Satisfaction, Independent Variables = All Service Quality Dimensions. Table 10. Regression analysis result between overall service quality and customer satisfaction Hypothesis H6: Overall Service Quality → Customer Satisfaction Beta Std Error t-value Sig. Conclusion 0.523 0.092 9.242 0.000* Supported Note: *p < 0.05, Dependent Variable = Customer Satisfaction, Independent Variables = Overall Service Quality. another salient predictor of customer satisfaction. Therefore, the stock brokers or managers should pay emphasise on five dimensions of service quality, especially on empathy, to enhance their customer satisfaction. It improves customer re-purchase intention, which in turn leads to increased profits for firms. Clients will have a long-term relationship with their respective stock brokers and will be prone to provide referrals. 6. LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH All research studies have their own limitations and the present study is no exception. Because the study is a starting point for a new direction in measuring the customer satisfaction via service quality towards stock broking services, it has encountered a few limitations: • The focus of the study was on stock broking services. The study was restricted to one • • • • sector only, so that a verification of the findings in other industries is desirable. The usage patterns of the different financial services channels may vary among countries. Consequently, if the findings and the managerial implications of the paper are to be used in other regions with different cultures and governmental financial policies, additional research has to be done to validate the consistency of the research results. Primary data based research suffers from the basic limitation of the possibility of difference between what is recorded and what is the truth (Singh, 1989). In the present study, some of the respondents might not have stated honest responses. The study was conducted in Bhopal (MP) only. Thus, findings may not be applicable to other parts of the country. The most importantly, increase in sample size from multi-city can be considered for future research for better generalization of the findings. Copyright © 2014, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. International Journal of Customer Relationship Marketing and Management, 5(3), 32-48, July-September 2014 45 However, despite these limitations, the current paper contributes significantly the existing literature by measuring customer satisfaction via service quality dimensions in stock broking. Avkiran, N. K. (1994). Developing an instrument to measure customer service quality in branch banking. International Journal of Bank Marketing, 12(6), 10–18. doi:10.1108/02652329410063223 REFERENCES Babakus, E., & Boller, G. W. (1992). An empirical assessment of the SERVQUAL scale. Journal of Business Research, 24(3), 253–268. doi:10.1016/01482963(92)90022-4 Akhter, W., Abbasi, A. S., Ali, I., & Afzal, H. (2011). Factors affecting customer loyalty in Pakistan. African Journal of Business Management, 5(4), 1167–1174. Bagozzi, R. P., & Yi, Y. 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