Banking customer satisfaction evaluation: a three-way factor perspective

As management of a national bank wanted to analyze its retail service competition loss probably due to low customer satisfaction, we carried out an empirical study based on a sample of 27,000 retail customers. The survey aimed to analyze retail service weaknesses and to individuate possible recovery actions measuring their effectiveness across different waves (three time lags). We studied a definition of a new dissimilarity measure exploiting a dimension reduction obtained by a three-way factor analysis (TFA). We had previously focused our attention on the limits of this approach related to the geometrical properties of the TFA applied. We introduced a reassessment of the points to adjust the three-way solution according to the quality of representation of the points. This transformation only rescaled the factor scores producing a local adjustment of the point configuration. We then performed a trajectory analysis of the different waves. The results showed the effectiveness of our approach. Therefore, further study of the derivation of a synthetic measure of cluster routes seems appropriate. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012