Customer perceptions of Korean digital and traditional banks

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to compare customer experience (CE) between digital and traditional South Korean bank users and its relationship with customer satisfaction (CS).

Design/methodology/approach

A survey of bank customers was conducted, and an ANOVA test was performed to compare the means of CS between digital and traditional bank (TB) users as well as four dimensions of CE, such as usefulness, convenience, employee-customer engagement (ECE) and security. The ordinal regression analysis was also performed to test the moderation effect of digital bank (DB) use on the relationship between CE and satisfaction.

Findings

The means of usefulness were higher among DB users than TB users. By contrast, ECE and security means were lower for digital than TB users. The ordinal regression analysis indicated that DB use had a moderating effect on the relationship between convenience and CS and the relationship between ECE and CS. DB use encouraged increased positive relationships between convenience and CS, and moderated the relationship between ECE and CS in a negative direction.

Practical implications

ECE and security for DBs is weak. Therefore, bank executives need to improve these areas through real-time customer services and adding authentication procedures.

Originality/value

Unlike previous studies, this study proposed a model that reveals differences in CE between traditional and DB users. It explored the effects of CE on CS to contribute to the continued development of South Korean DBs.

Citation

Shin, J.W., Cho, J.Y. and Lee, B.G. (2020), "Customer perceptions of Korean digital and traditional banks", International Journal of Bank Marketing, Vol. 38 No. 2, pp. 529-547. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJBM-03-2019-0084