SERVICE QUALITY PERCEPTION AND PERFORMANCE IN DIAMOND BANK

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background to the study
Service is part of every one’s daily life. Service is one fundamental aspect of individual, groups, institutions and even government. Business and other organization also use a wide array of service, usually purchasing on a much larger scale than do individuals or household.
Service tends to dominate a greater part of a country’s GDP, i.e. to say that the service sector account for more than 50% of a country’s GDP. Lovelock et al (2009). Around the world, the service sector of the economy is going through a period of almost revolutionary change in which established ways of doing business continue to be shunted aside as innovators continually launch new ways to satisfy existing needs and to meet needs that were undiscovered. Lovelock et al (2009).
In Nigeria today, several organization are involved in service provision, government sector for instance with it courts, hospitals, military services, police and fire services, schools, postal service and museums provides myriad of services to its citizenry.
The private sector on the other hand provides services through churches, foundations, charity organizations, schools, hospitals, etc. For private businesses, it covers air, water and land transportation services, banks services hotel and hospitality. Others are services provided by insurance companies, law firms, medical practices and real estate firms etc which provides services that need the services of a marketer. Again, many workers in the manufacturing sector such as computer operators, accountants, legal staff etc are really service providers.
In United States for instance, service has grown dramatically in recent years accounting for 74% of United State GDP and nearly 60% of personal consumption expenditure. Kotler and Armstrong (2004). Services are classified into four broad categories which are people processing, possession processing, mental stimulus processing and information processing lovelock et al (2009). However, it can be further classified into sub-categories-pure tangible goods, tangible goods with accompany services, hybrid, major service with accompany minor goods, pure service and electronic service. it can also be classified in the form of equipment based vs people based, clients present vs clients absent, personal service vs business service, profit making service vs not for profit making services and public owned services vs private owned service. Although many new business ventures fail, a few succeed. Many long established service firms are also failing or being merged out of existence, but others progress by continually rethinking the best way they do business, looking for innovative ways to serve customers better and taking advantage of new development in technology. Service offer benefits without ownership. Lovelock et al (2009). That is to say that service does not normally transfer ownership but rather it represent a form of rental. What customers or clients value and are willing to pay for are desired experiences and solution, thus, superior service quality.

Service quality is as a result of an evaluation process in which customers or clients compare their perception of service delivery and its outcome with their expectations. Service quality is strongly user oriented and its problems are not confined to traditional service industry. It can be expressed mathematically as E- P=SQ, where E is the expectation of consumers, P is the performance and SQ is the degree or level of service quality perceived. Lovelock and Wirtz (2011).
As time pass on, service industries or providers research new ways to best offer it clients and customer the highest or superior service quality which will lead to continue consumption of their services by it clients.
Statement of the Problem
Most service providers tends not to meet up with the expectation of their client, most especially when it comes to banking industry where there is no security, accessibility and quick delivery of service to mention a few, yet the service providers seem to be ignorant as my exploratory research reveals, about the service quality gaps. Banking service providers at times do not understand or know the various areas or aspects in which customers tends to attach salient believes or importance to, in order to strategize effectively to provide superior service quality to their customers or clients.
This study is to identify or point out specific measures of service quality and how it can affect the performance of Diamond bank P LC, and to suggest ways in which Diamond bank P L C can improve the service quality delivered to their customers or clients.

1.3 Research question
In reference to the statement of problem of this study, these question are put forward in order to reach the objectives of this research work.

What is the relationship between reliability and the performance of Diamond Bank PLC.

To what extent does accessibility affects the performance of Diamond Bank PLC.

To what extent does tangible influence the performance of Diamond Bank PLC.

To what extent does security affects the performance of Diamond Bank.

To what extent does responsiveness affect performance of Diamond Bank PLC