E-banking and customer satisfaction with banking services

The set-off of the financial crisis in 2007, as well as the natural dynamics of the banking sector, have determined a fierce competition within the banking industry. The Romanian banking system developed rapidly in terms of profitability and rhythm of credit growth up to 2007, and therefore credit institutions did not make efforts to investigate and support customer satisfaction through concerted actions, since the economic growth period created and maintained the phenomenon commonly referred to as 'the client searches for the bank'. Starting with 2008, however, the prospects have changed significantly due to the drastic reduction of the consumption of banking products, especially loan products. Credit institutions were therefore forced to rethink their promotion strategies and pay more attention to all elements that impact customer satisfaction including digitalization of the banking products without additional costs. Under these circumstances, banks are preoccupied, more than ever, with customer satisfaction. The particular nature of the banking activity limits the possibilities for banks to differentiate their offer of products and services (Ilie et al., 2017). Bearing in mind that in the end all organizations strive to obtain customer loyalty, banks' concern with customer satisfaction appears as a natural and legitimate preoccupation. Although the concept of satisfaction was introduced several decades ago by Cardozo (1965), a consensus regarding its definition has not yet been reached. Some authors view satisfaction as a process (Hunt, 1977, Tse and Wilton, 1988), while others regard it as an outcome (Howard and Sheth, 1969). Although a generally accepted definition has not yet been developed, numerous models including determinants or antecedents of customer satisfaction are available in the dedicated literature. As in the case of the definition of customer satisfaction, consensus has not been reached regarding the determinants or antecedents of customer satisfaction either. The focus of this paper is to grasp the importance of e-banking within the general satisfaction of customers with regard to banking services. Following an ample literature review, we selected five categories of customer satisfaction determinants with bank services: convenience, environment, quality, tariffs, and e-banking, each comprising several sub-criteria. We then employed a descriptive quantitative research, in Constanta County (South-East Romania), during November and Decembe