Difference in the perception of the quality of bank services between the clients and the employees of commercial banks

The banks, that aspire to offer the highest level service quality, can test the perception of this quality through polls among both their clients and their own employees. This paper is aimed at verifying the proposition about the identity of assessment of the service quality as perceived by the above two groups of persons polled. To solve the thus formulated problem, the factor analysis method as well as the data from questionnaires, all containing the same set of questions, addressed to the bank's employees and clients, were used. It turned out that some quality dimensions were equally perceived in the case of both the groups but, at the same time, some meaningful differences appeared. The employees, in general, differently perceived certain groups of questions, this probably resulting from their better knowledge of the bank's mode of operation. In addition, in their answers a certain reference to internal situation in the given bank's branch could be observed, which was absent in the quality assessments gathered among the clients. Whereas, among the consumers of services a greater importance was attached to the bank's reliability and the history of the client's earlier contacts with the bank. This means that the exclusive use of employee polls is, in a certain way, imperfect, since it permits better to spot the problems of organization and management at the bank branch level, but at the same time to an insufficient degree recommends the way of treating the client by the bank.