Examining the effects of electronic service quality on online banking customer satisfaction : evidence from Zambia

While several studies examine the influence of service quality on customer satisfaction in physical retail banking offices, there is a shortage of studies on service quality in the digital space of banking. Further, many developing country contexts such as Zambia are under-researched, limiting the generalisability of prior research conclusions. Hence, the purpose of this research is to examine electronic service quality in online retail banking and its influence on customer satisfaction during COVID-19 pandemic restrictions in the under-researched context of Zambia. Based on a quantitative correlational design, primary sample data were collected using a structured questionnaire from 314 bank customers from two of Zambia's largest cities, Lusaka and Kitwe. The data were analysed using correlation and multiple regression models. The findings indicate that the E-SERVQUAL model is applicable in the Zambian context and that security, website attribute, privacy, responsiveness, efficiency, fulfilment and reliability are indeed relevant to electronic service quality and they affect customer satisfaction; the multiple coefficients of determination (51.1%) and correlation (71.5%) indicate a large effect size. This extends the E-SERVQUAL model into the under-researched developing country context of online banking in Zambia during the COVID-19 restrictions. The implications to policy and practice are that improving security, website attributes, privacy, efficiency, responsiveness, fulfilment and reliability would result in higher customer satisfaction and usage of the online facilities. Since the study was limited to two, albeit the biggest, cities of Zambia, increasing the number of cities and countries sampled would improve generalisability.