Identification and ranking of factors affecting customer satisfaction with Refah Bank's electronic services

Field of study: Executive Management

Treatment: Marketing

Introduction

With the expansion of information technology, all aspects of human life have undergone a fundamental transformation so that the current world has undergone a complete transformation, perhaps it can be said that the current industrial world has no choice but to choose this transformation and stagnation will cause disruption in the social, political and economic relations of the people of a society and even in international relations. The development or non-development of information technology in some societies has caused disruptions in relations and increases between countries. New communication technologies have penetrated the temporal and spatial dimensions and turned the world today into a global village, so that it is as if the current human being has stepped into another world. During the last two decades of the 20th century, three important innovations, namely fax, mobile phone and the Internet, have shown how the expansion of communication can change the service industry and people's ways of working and living. Advances in communication and information technologies in addition to improving In providing services, it has reduced service costs. The impact of information and communication technology in the field of trade and commerce caused structural changes in the global economy and the emergence of a phenomenon called electronic commerce, a process in which all products are bought and sold through computer, telecommunication, or both communication networks. For example, the Internet, as one of the new channels of economic exchanges, has provided organizations with new resources to generate income and opportunities, and the amount of transactions through the Internet is increasing day by day, and companies that do not use this technology will disappear from the market scene in a short period of time. With the development of electronic systems, geographical distance has lost its meaning and has led to an increase in competition between companies and institutions, including banks. In order to achieve potential market opportunities and overcome various obstacles and threats in the complex business environment, banks must have a competitive advantage. The electronic banking system has provided a basis for achieving this advantage. Currently, many banks around the world provide electronic services, and a growing segment of customers who tend to do their banking operations using electronic systems without going to a branch is emerging. By using electronic banking services, bank customers can perform their banking operations at the time and place of their choice, and banks also benefit from lower operating costs due to the reduction in the number of employees and the reduction in the number of branches. brand  (Latfinia et al., 2012) It is obvious that if customers do not accept electronic banking systems, the provision of such services will fail. Therefore, it can be said that the use of electronic banking in daily affairs is no longer one of the dos and don'ts, but it is an inevitable thing.

Statement of the research problem

The existence of competition among institutions and businesses to gain more market share and the efforts of customers to achieve greater satisfaction has caused both companies to seek a privileged position in the market and customers to find clues to reach the best suppliers. Banks are one of the companies and organizations that operate in the field of providing services and their role and importance in the country's economy and development is not hidden from anyone. On the other hand, in recent years, the growth of information and communication technology has made fundamental changes in the business world. With the development of information technology, all aspects of human life have undergone a fundamental transformation, so that the current world is undergoing a complete transformation. In the meantime, financial institutions are not exempt from this rule and have undergone major changes in management methods and processes and system-oriented and information-based businesses (Liao and Cheong [1], 2002). Electronic banking, which is the product of new changes and the application of information technology in the banking system, allows bank customers and other stakeholders to interact with the bank without intermediaries and through various channels such as the Internet, mobile phones, ATMs, telephones, and digital television (Misra[2], 2001). ATMs were used in Iran for the first time in 1350, but after the revolution and following the outbreak of the imposed war, this project was postponed and was pursued again at the beginning of the 1370s, followed by several plans with the approval of the comprehensive plan of banking automation as the infrastructure and foundation for providing services.. In Iran, ATMs were used for the first time in 1350, but after the revolution and following the outbreak of the imposed war, this project was postponed and followed up again at the beginning of the 1370s, and following that, several plans were implemented with the approval of the Bank Automation Master Plan as the infrastructure and foundation for providing modern banking services and moving towards electronic banking in Iran. Among them is the banking information exchange network (Shatab), the expansion of mobile and internet banking services, phone banking, etc. pointed out (Malki and Akbari, 2009). The advantages of electronic banking can be considered from the two aspects of customers and financial institutions. From the point of view of customers, it can be mentioned saving costs, saving time and access to multiple channels to perform various banking operations. From the point of view of financial institutions, we can mention such features as creating and increasing the reputation of banks in providing innovation, maintaining customers despite the locational changes of banks, creating opportunities to search for new customers in target markets, expanding the geographical scope of activity and establishing full competition conditions. Today, customers tend to perform banking operations using electronic systems without going to bank branches. By using electronic banking services, bank customers can perform their banking operations at the time and place of their choice, and the bank also benefits from this because in this case, it needs fewer employees and fewer branches (Latfinia et al., 2012). But the efficiency of these benefits for the bank depends on how much the customer is aware of the quality and quantity of these services? In other words, only creating and providing the electronic banking system is a necessary and sufficient condition for the efficiency of its benefits for the bank; It is not, but creating conditions that help the customer learn about the benefits, quality and how to use these systems, as well as creating a platform that provides ease of access to this system for the customer is also one of the effective factors in the productivity of the organization and the customer from the implementation of the electronic banking system (Ravi [3], 2008).  According to the above, it is clear that the concepts of awareness, recognition, use, and most importantly, customer satisfaction are the basic conditions for the effectiveness of electronic banking service programs. Today, organizations are seeking to attract customers and increase satisfaction. Customer satisfaction means that they are satisfied with the way the organization's service providers treat them, and the organization has been successful in attracting and retaining them. These satisfied customers, as much as they spend more time and money for the organization, they will expect high quality services (Halstead [4], 1999). This issue is especially important for banks that are in constant contact with customers, and on the other hand, the competition between banks and good loan institutions and other forms of attracting monetary resources is increasing; therefore, creating a competitive advantage seems necessary for the survival of banks. Banks and attracting customers and their satisfaction. (Mohammadi, 1381).

Until now, many researches have been done regarding the satisfaction of bank customers, but there are also research gaps in this field. For example, some researches, such as the research conducted by Naibzadeh in 2017 on the relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty and the performance of banks, during which there is no specific mention of satisfaction with electronic banking and only the financial performance of the bank has been considered; Considering the importance of communication in today's world, it seems that conducting such research without considering the aspects of information technology and its quality and quantity in banking systems does not give valid and reliable results. Therefore, the main problem of this research is to identify and rank the factors affecting customer satisfaction with the electronic services of Refah Bank by using the hierarchical analysis process approach in the fuzzy environment. Necessity and importance of the research In terms of banks, including financial institutions, they are very important in all developed and developing countries. In Iran, the economic system is heavily influenced by the banking system. On the other hand, Iran's banking system is expanding in terms of the number of banks. in such a way that every year a bank enters the country's financial system; This has increased the choice for customers and has affected customer loyalty to banks. Meanwhile, the need to use new and diverse services in order to satisfy more customers can be effective in attracting them and subsequently increasing people's investment in the banking system. One of these ways is to use and provide electronic banking services to citizens (Vahdt and Langari, 2019).