Customer satisfaction with digital banking channels in times of uncertainty

ABSTRACT

The unprecedented Lebanese economic crisis and the global COVID-19 pandemic have taken their toll on the Lebanese banking sector. This led to the need to investigate this sector in times of dire uncertainty by highlighting six digital banking channels offered by Lebanese banks. This study reveals how the banking industry has adapted to this novel situation by embracing dynamic technological changes to attain higher levels of customer satisfaction with digital banking channels (DBCs). Consequently, the study investigates the extent of DBC adoption, their usage benefits, the resulting service quality, and their aggregate impact on overall customer satisfaction with DBCs. The study measures customer satisfaction with digital technologies implemented in Lebanese banks during the most unstable period of Lebanese history. This study supported the deductive approach generating significantly interesting results by analyzing Spearman’s correlations regarding DBC adoption and investigating customer satisfaction levels with DBCs showing satisfactory results such as high correlation for mobile banking adoption (0.544), internet banking (0.533), transactional call center (0.528) followed by ATM (0.455). A multiple linear regression study found a positive relationship between DBC adoption in Lebanese banks and overall customer satisfaction with DBCs with an adjusted R-squared value of 0.454 for DBC benefits and an adjusted R-squared value of 0.802 for DBC service quality in Lebanese banks on their customer satisfaction. The final conclusion is that banks should invest in DBCs and develop them as they are the major determinants leading to improved customer satisfaction through higher adoption/diversification rates, improved service quality levels and greater benefits.