A study on the customer orientation of the Sri Lankan Banking Sector

Abstract

Organizations are studying their existing and potential customers when developing marketing strategies or programmes in order to assure that customers are satisfied comparatively better than they would be satisfied by their competitors. Therefore marketers have to be oriented with their customers to create value in the form of beneficiates or product. Narver and Slater (1990) describe customer orientation as the “seller has to understand who its potential customers are at present as well as who they may be in the future, what they want now as well as what they may want in the future, and what they perceive now as well as what they may perceive in the future as relevant satisfiers of their wants”. Thus the purpose of the customer orientation is to provide a solid basis of intelligence pertaining to present and potential competitors for executive actions. Meanwhile competition seems to be increasing in a rapid rate in every business; therefore, there is a need to understand their customers fully. The tough competitive environment is prevalent in the Sri Lankan banking sector too, since many new banks are entering into Sri Lankan banking sector; but so far no research has been conducted in Sri Lanka to examine the customers orientation of the Sri Lankan banking sector. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to analyze the customer orientation of the Sri Lankan banking sector and the research was limited to the Sri Lankan banking sector which consists of 22 commercial banks and 13 specialized banks. The researcher adopted quantitative methodology and used structured questionnaires for data collection. Descriptive statistics were used for data analysis. Collected data were analyzed using SPSS v.13.0 and evaluated as low, moderate, and high level influence of research variables on customer orientation in Sri Lankan banking sector such as Commitment to customers, Creating customer value, and Response to customers’ needs. Results showed that Sri Lankan banks are highly customer-oriented. Hence it can be concluded that Sri Lankan banks have to apply strong customer relationship managerial practices to add value to their customers.