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Strategic positioning and quality determinants in banking service

Hatice Camgoz Akdag
Management Department, Kadir Has University, Istanbul, Turkey, and

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Mosad Zineldin
School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University, Vaxjo, Sweden
Abstract
Purpose The aim of this paper is to investigate and dene the competitive positioning of banks including state-owned, domestic and foreign banks operating in Istanbul, Turkey. The aim is to check the competitive marketplace and to identify the major quality attributes, which bankers themselves and their customers used in determining the overall perception of a given bank and services offered. Design/methodology/approach The investigation was held in Istanbul, Turkey. In total, 30 banks were included in the research, which includes state-owned, local and foreign-owned banks. A total of 1,530 questionnaires were submitted, answers collected and analyzed. Reliability test and frequency analysis were used to analyze the data. Findings From the banks customers point of view, determinants relating to functional quality or how the customers wish to receive banking services became evident. It also became clear that customers of banks are not fully receiving what they want or need and their expectations, especially on the most important attributes of quality, are not being met. Research limitations/implications The survey showed how the banks were selected and including their employees in relation to the other competitors banks in the Turkish banking industry. Originality/value The paper demonstrates an integrated technology, use of staff talent and streamlined operations that respond to customer needs and encourage customers to use the whole range of banking products/services rather than only a few as the end game. The results were used by bank staff later on to reengineer and redesign creatively their positioning strategy and the future direction for creating more effective quality strategies. Keywords Positioning, Turkish banks, Bank selection, Determinants, Attributes, Customer perception, Turkey, Customer service management Paper type Research paper

The TQM Journal Vol. 23 No. 4, 2011 pp. 446-457 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1754-2731 DOI 10.1108/17542731111139518

1. Introduction In the newly deregulated environment particularly in the banking industries, customers have become more demanding and competition among banks become even more challenging. This has become more so after the recent world-wide nancial crisis. Banks are struggling to nd new ways to compete. As banks have began to realize that no one can offer all products and all services and maintain the top position at the same time and be recognized a leading bank for all customers, the need to develop mission, organizational strengths and prepare answers concerning the strategic positioning has become equally challenging (Zineldin, 1996). Uncertainties in business conditions and limited opportunities have led the banks to face bitter aggressive competition. Financial institutions typically compete in broad markets with numerous customers that are geographically dispersed and seek a variety of different service offerings (Minhas and Jacobs, 1996) to attract customers. Recognizing that limited resources prevent banks from serving all customers in the

market effectively, banks are developing marketing strategies that target only a specic segment to realize greatest opportunity for success (Young, 1999). Strategic questions such as the followings are also being asked: Which criteria of characteristics should be used to segment the market? Which segment(s) provides banks with the greatest opportunity? What combination of benets and costs provide the targeted segment the greatest value relative to competitive offerings? And, in addition to operational decisions pertaining to pricing, promoting, distributing and product design what factors can be addressed for understanding the market structure in which the banks must choose to compete. A primary purpose of marketing strategy is the development of a competitive advantage strategy (Devlin and Ennew, 1997) that can provide customers with superior value compared to competitive offerings. According to an article by Ta and Har (2000), an essential rst step is to ensure that banks services correspond with clients short and long term needs. The essential task is the matching of the needs of bank consumers and the products and services of banks in order to develop a positioning strategy (Ta and Har, 2000). Organizations nowadays know that they will not achieve perfect positioning through the traditional 4Ps approach of product marketing (Knox, 2004). Every bank has to consider how to enter a market and then how to build and protect its customer segment (Zineldin, 2002). Evaluation of the relationship between quality and positioning requires an understanding and examination of all of the elements of quality relative to the operations strategy (Zineldin, 1995, 1996, 2000). Our concern here is with the role of positioning in development of a marketing mix strategy for products/services that compete on more than just imagery attributes. This entails decision making on substantive attributes that are known to be important to customers and their perception relate to product performance, price, and service availability. The positioning attempts to distinguish the bank from its competitors along real quality dimensions in order to be the most preferred bank for a certain given market segment. In addition, positioning provides a competitive marketing tool. In a competitive marketplace, a position also reects how customers perceive the products/services or organizations performance on specic given attributes relative to that of the competitors. Positioning can then change ones existing position in the mind seen by the customers (Kotler, 1994). Banks should therefore, either reinforce or modify customers perception or their images. Zineldin (1993) has cited a number of benets of effective segmentation for banks typically to consider according to their strengths and their abilities to differentiate the products/services offerings. Quality of service has been mentioned in many published papers as the most important factors in bank selection decisions (Laroche et al., 1986; Sinkula and Lawtor, 1988; Ying and Chua, 1989). Laroche et al. (1986) and Martenson (1985) have revealed that prior to Anderson et al.s study (1976), location was consistently cited as the most important criterion in bank service delivery. Partially owing to such proven and potential benets, and partially fuelled by Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berrys seminal work in the 1980s (Parasuraman et al., 1985, 1988), service quality issues have received growing attention from management and academic circles alike (Yavas et al., 1997). This paper discusses some strategic issues related to bank positioning. A number of ways in which distinctive positions have been developed and maintained are identied.

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A well integrated application of technology and staff training and operational excellence was found to encourage customers use of a whole range of banking products/services rather than just a few. Clients royalty also comes into play helping to create deeper and complete customer relations. 2. Banking sector history in Turkey Turkish Government announced the liberalization and globalization policies in January 1980 in order to increase the efciency and competition in the nancial system. The Turkish banking industry has experienced many important changes after this announcement. Prior to 1980s, banking system was dominated by state-owned banks and they were heavily regulated in terms of market entry, interest rates and exchange rates and in a way protected from external competition. They remained conservative, innovations were non-existent. Banks were controlled by the large state-owned banks. These were operating in the highly regulated environment and no one was thinking quality of service as an issue. During the 1980s, however, with the growth of the Turkish economy and full convertibility of the Turkish lira, a surge in Turkeys international trade took off with the privatization of state-owned economic enterprises and it brought bank marketing to the fore (Yavas et al., 1997). The period was characterized by introduction of ATMs, telephonic banking, proliferation of credit cards, installation of on-line systems, and ultimately replacement of manual book keeping by electronic data processing to better serve the customers (Bilgin and Yavas, 1995). One additional noticeable result of these changes was that the number of foreign banks in Turkey increased from four to 23 giving all banks a signicant presence in Turkish market (Kibritcioglu, 2005). As of May 23, 2008, there were three state owned banks, 11 private domestic banks and 11 foreign banks (The Banks Association of Turkey, 2008). These foreign banks imported service quality know-how into the Turkish banking industry (Akan, 1995; Bilgin and Yavas, 1995), which started threatening the domestic banks and increased competition in the Turkish banking sector. The so-called hot-money mechanism, which was driven mainly by external open positions of Turkish banks began to create a deep currency and banking crisis in early 1994 because it turned out that this mechanism was not sustainable anymore (Kibritcioglu, 2005). According to Kibritcioglu (2005), the resulting 1994 nancial crisis caused a lower credit rating of Turkey and pessimism about its economy, and hence many small banks found it difcult to raise funds abroad. Many banks were forced to increase their branch networks in order to collect more deposits. In the early 1999, the banking system became very fragile signaling a systemic crisis. In 1999, the State Deposit Insurance Fund (SDIF) took over six insolvent banks using the authority given to it in 1994 when full deposit insurance was introduced. The point is that the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BRSA) is the independent authority responsible for supervision of the banking system in Turkey. The BRSA was established on June 23, 1999 and started its activities on August 31, 2000. The powers and responsibilities related to the supervision of the banking system which had previously been divided between the under Secretariat of Treasury and the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey were transferred to the BRSA (The Banks Association of Turkey, 2005) in 2005.

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After the November 2000 and February 2001 crises in Turkey, the new macroeconomic environment led to another important change in the banking sector (Abbasoglu et al., 2007). Turkey was just recovering from the 1994 crisis and became vulnerable to capital outows of foreign investors and witnessed a balance of payments problem again following the 1997 Russian crisis. An agreement with IMF was signed but nevertheless Turkey was hit by another crisis in 2001. The devaluation of the Turkish lira by 100 percent against the dollar and the jump of the repo interest rates up to 1,275 percent in one week made the banks unable to meet their obligations (Taskin, 2009). Due to this crisis the protability of banks were suffered and the interest rates rose and the Turkish Lira got depreciated. Number of banks, their branches and employees were reduced under the scope of the Banking Restructuring Program. The equity structures of the private banks were strengthened and merger and acquisition activities promoted as tax incentives (Abbasoglu et al., 2007). Following the crisis in 2001, and the resulting restructuring process, the banking sector showed a rapid growth during 2002-2008. The total assets rose from USD 130 billion to USD 465 billion, their ratio to GDP from 57 percent to 77 percent. The numbers of branches and staff rapidly increased. The nancial structure of the sector also became stronger. The total prot of the commercial banks and the development and investment banks increased by 35 percent in the rst seven months of 2009 compared to the same period of last year and reached 12.3 billion (USD 8.4 billion). Turkish banks announced record prots on their balance sheets for 2009. The total protability of the banks in 2009 was attributed to the revenues from loans and bonds despite the global crisis and according to some estimates, it exceeded 20 billion in Turkish Lira (TL). The Turkish banking sector saw net annual prots over 3 billion TL for the rst time in its history. 3. The competitive environment Table I shows the protability gures of banks in the last ve years based on balance sheets of banks and data compiled from Turkiyes Union of Banks, (Yatirim Dergisi, 2009). It shows the prot or loss in thousand TL of the rst six banks. As it is clear from the table the most protable bank is the state owned bank TC Ziraat Bank. This means that the banking market is controlled by the major three banks of Turkey where the rst bank is a state owned bank: TC Ziraat Bank, Garanti Bank and TC Is Bank.

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Banks TC Ziraat Bank Garanti Bank TC Is Bank Akbank Halk Bank Yapi Kredi Bank

2005 1,846,000 752,000 1,379,940 1,489,668 525,325 23,055,145

2006 2,100,000 1,167,000 1,415,263 1,580,145 864,259 697,000

2007 2,351,000 2,421,008 2,026,795 2,040,429 1,132,620 1,019,000

2008 2,134,000 1,891,002 1,819,030 1,782,252 1,016,297 1,265,000

2009 3,511,000 3,100,000 2,752,304 2,722,661 1,665,369 1,553,000

Note: Above gures are in TL (000s)

Table I. Prot or loss table

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4. Research methodology The empirical information and data for the present research come from two sources. The rst source is the literature and history data bank of the Turkish banking sector. The second data source was obtained by means of a customer questionnaire survey made for internal and external customers of banks. Only the adult persons working in banks primarily involved with decision making concerning the nancial services were asked to respond to the research questions. The data was collected via mail, email, telephone or face-to-face interviews. A total 2,000 questionnaires were distributed in Istanbul and 1,600 replies to questionnaires were nally received. Sixty-three respondents had no signicant management relationships with banks and were not able to give reliable answers. Of the questionnaires seven were missing so these were excluded. A total of 1,530 questionnaires were considered as completed and these were accepted and used giving us a 76.5 per cent acceptable return out of the total responses. Emphasis was placed on the condentiality by guaranteeing anonymity of respondents and banks names. The battery of questionnaire related to customers preference, attitude and perception about their banks and the quality of services. Frequency distribution, gap analysis between factors, and attributes and reliability analysis were used for analyzing the data. In a frequency distribution, one variable was considered at a time. The objective was to obtain a count of the number of responses associated with different values of the variable expressed in percentages (Malhotra, 2007). As frequency distribution is a descriptive analysis, it was going to show how respondents perceive each attribute related to determinants of bank selection and positioning of banks. Gap analysis between factors and attributes was done to identify key points emerging from the questionnaire; the reliability analysis tests were performed to assure the validity of key points. 5. Results and interpretation 5.1 Reliability analysis Coefcient alphas for determinants in bank selection as well as the overall instrument were well above Nunnallys (1978) guidelines (coefcient alpha . 0.70). At the determinants level, alpha was 0.813. Likewise, coefcient alpha for the overall instrument was 0.92. 5.2 Customers image about competing banks As stated earlier, positioning is the collective perception of customers about a bank service and/or its product quality. In the minds of customers, each bank or its product has some sort of conceptual relationship. Positioning is involved in a number of dimensions of marketing strategy. It is involved in the perception of product type (e.g. a bank can make a strong effort to position the product in the minds of consumers as being completely different in relation to its competitors). Some products are either well positioned on the basis of quality (a bank can make a strong effort to build a strong image and position of unique quality features and comfort) or many products are positioned on the basis of price alone. As positioning is signicant to customers in that it provides a basis for comparing alternative choices in the marketplace, it was needed to investigate how a bank has been selected and perceived from the customers perspective in relation to its competitors.

The customer was asked to indicate the rst impression that comes to his/her mind about the main bank and other competing banks. Fifteen possible position descriptions were used. From the customers minds and eyes, the most ve frequent position descriptions mentioned are summarized in Table II. Turkiye Garanti Bank has a clear position as the market leader, market niche, technological innovative, excellent product service quality, bank for SMEs and mortgage bank. Of respondents 29.5 percent perceived Garanti Bank as market challenger and 20 percent as market follower. The friendliest bank was found to be Akbank, HSBC as a global bank which is the only foreign owned bank listed in the rst ve, T.C. Ziraat bank as a family bank, a domestic bank and a regional bank, Turkiye Isbank a bank under category of large corporations. The investigation revealed that 52 percent of respondents had a relationship with one of the three big Turkish banks and there was no crystal-clear leading bank. However, there were number of leaders; leader in terms of deposit base, a leader in terms of loans outstanding base, largest bank leader in terms of assets, or a niche market leader bank and a bank with largest number of followers. Interestingly enough, 39.3 percent of respondents had selected their bank as being the market leader. Regarding the determinants of bank selection, the analysis also produced ve valid criteria which represented some dimensions by which customers evaluated and perceived the attributes of their banks, i.e. for service quality, credit availability and price competition, delivery system, promotion, and reputation and for differentiation. Table III provides the results of the frequency distribution of these dimensions. From the customers perspective, the ndings were as follows: speed of services and decision process (4.58), Safety of funds and high condence (4.49), and nally the friendliness and helpfulness of personnel (4.426) clearly emerged as the most important determinants of bank selection. Moreover, the results indicated that reputation (3.76), advertising (3.18), and recommendation by others (2.98) compensated for overall lower scores of factors. As most of the banks offer almost a similar product/service, factors such as recommended by others, interesting advertising, full service provider, supporting or facilitator services appeared to be less important in selecting a bank. As also expected, price competitiveness was found to be the least important factor. To determine the importance of services offered in the customers process of selection and the level of performance of these services by the bank, the respondents were asked to rate the actual perceived attributes of their banks which they feel are most important ones to them. The analysis is shown in Table IV. It produced ve valid criteria, which represented the dimensions by which respondents were found to evaluate their business relationship with banks. The aim was to measure how important bank customers perceived a number of attributes, similar to the factors discussed, in relation to their selection of a bank, as well as to measure the gap between customers expectations and their actual satisfaction. The results of such factor analysis could shape the customers assessment of the quality of a particular service or dimension (Zineldin, 1996). Managements failure to identify customer desires was taken accurately as one kind of quality gap (Zeithaml et al., 1990). Table III reveals that for the most important criteria used by the customers in selecting a bank was related to service quality and delivery system. The scores for service quality and delivery system were above 4.00 almost close to 4.5 (see Table III). This reected the reliability and responsiveness of the banking services for its

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1 Market leader 29.5 20.1 33.7 34.7 17.1 24.9 42.2 35.0 14.8 14.2 11.4 23.0 30.5 12.2 IsB AkB IsB AkB GarantiB IsB INGB HalkB IsB HalkB AnadoluB YKB YKB AdaB 20.7 19.4 14.0 20.2 16.5 17.1 13.0 10.9 12.7 11.4 8.8 13.7 11.8 9.4 AkB IsB AkB YKB IsB YKB GarantiB IsB AkB DenizB AdaB AkB AkB ArapTurkB 19.4 18.1 12.4 13.6 12.9 13.0 4.4 8.2 12.4 9.6 5.9 13.0 11.1 8.2

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Table II. Positioning of banks from customers perspective First Bank Percent GarantiB 29.2 IsB 26.9 AkB 12.9 Second Bank Percent Third Bank Percent Fourth Bank Percent Fifth Bank Percent Ziraat HSBC HSBC HSBC FinansB HSBC ZiraatB AkB GarantiB YKB HalkB HSBC FinansB AlternatifB SekerB 3.9 4.6 6.8 5.6 7.3 6.4 3.1 5.0 10.0 8.0 5.3 6.3 4.2 5.1 5.1 YKB ZiraatB YKB YKB YKB IsB YKB AkB IsB VakifB HalkB AkB VakifB GarantiB DenizB MilleniumB 11.0 11.0 14.1 17.5 12.3 8.8 10.7 12.9 3.9 6.9 11.6 8.3 5.7 12.9 9.2 6.5

Market challenger GarantiB Market follower GarantiB Market nicher GarantiB Technological innovative GarantiB Friendly bank AkB Excellent product/service quality GarantiB Global bank HSBC Domestic/national bank ZiraatB Bank for families ZiraatB Bank for SMEs GarantiB Regional bank Ziraatb Bank for large corp. IsB Mortgage bank GarantiB Incompetent bank TurklandB

Factors 1. Speed of services and decision process 2. Safety of funds and high condence 3. Friendliness and helpfulness of personnel 4. High technological services (ATMs, computer) 5. Convenience of location 6. Price competitive on service charges 7. Account and transaction accurately and carefully 8. Full service provider 9. Offer more detailed information/knowledge of customers accounts, portfolio and services offered 10. Efciency in correcting mistakes 11. Opening hours 12. High ability of exibility in loan negotiations 13. First with new supporting, facilitator and different products/services 14. Price competitive on savings 15. Price competitive on loans 16. Availability of loans 17. Reputation 18. Interesting advertising 19. Recommendation by others

Mean importance rating on ve-point scale (mean scores) 4.58 4.49 4.426 4.421 4.42 4.40 4.32 4.32 4.28 4.21 4.08 4.07 4.05 3.98 3.94 3.87 3.76 3.18 2.98

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Table III. Determinants of bank selection

customers. Responsiveness is the willingness to provide prompt service and to help customers. From Table IV, we also nd that the customers are least satised with the followings: the range of services offered, information on services, safety of funds and condence, speed of services process, account and transaction accuracy and efciency in correcting mistakes. All these six criteria are attributes of service quality, which means that the customers are not fully satised with the service they receive. Regarding credit availability and price competition the only attribute with a negative gap is the service charges meaning that the customers are not satised with the service charges they face. The second most important criteria for customers perception were stated as delivery system identied in Table III. When Table IV is analyzed, it is seen that telecommunication/technology and friendly helpful personnel are the two most important criteria out of ve which have a negative gap. It is clear that customers were not fully receiving their expectations especially on the most important attributes that they have listed. 6. Conclusions and research implications As mentioned in the introduction, Turkish banking sector must examine their future opportunities to take a position in the marketplace because positioning will distinguish them from its competitors along real customer dimensions to be the preferred bank in the marketplace and it is all based on quality of services offered by them to their customers.

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Attributes/factors A Service quality Range of services offered Information on services Safety of funds and condence Speed of services Account and transaction accuracy Efciency in correcting mistakes Average scores B Credit availability and price competition Rate of interest charged Rate of interest paid Service charges Flexibility in loan negotiations Availability of loans Average scores C Delivery system Convenience of location Opening hours Telecommunication/technology Friendly/helpful personnel Average scores D Promotion Advertising Average scores

Satisfactory X 4.22 4.03 4.12 4.09 4.27 4.08 4.13 4.25 4.20 4.11 4.32 4.66 4.30 4.51 4.29 4.34 4.26 4.35 3.51 3.51 4.36 3.96 3.74 4.02

Importance X 4.32 4.28 4.49 4.58 4.32 4.21 4.36 3.94 3.98 4.40 4.07 3.87 4.05 4.42 4.08 4.42 4.42 4.33 3.18 3.18 3.76 4.05 2.98 3.59

Gap 2 0.10 2 0.25 2 0.37 2 0.49 2 0.05 2 0.13 2 0.23 0.31 0.22 2 0.29 0.25 0.79 0.25 0.09 0.21 2 0.08 2 0.16 0.02 0.33 0.33 0.60 2 0.09 0.76 0.43

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Table IV. Important attributes for bank selection and customers satisfaction

E Reputation, word-of-mouth and differentiation Reputation First with new products/services Recommended by others Average scores

This study highlights the importance of effective market positioning and has examines the concept of positioning using different customer satisfaction approaches a bank can use to occupy a strong market position. It suggests that using only one or two approaches is often not enough. Customers are expecting more every day. There is no exact combination or integration of several approaches that base with indicators, which can apply to all banks. A well integrated application of technology and use of trained and empowered staff and well dened operational strategies to respond to customer needs is the answer. The survey conducted show how a bank is perceived from the point of view of its customers in relation to its competitors. The analysis has produced ve criteria which represent dimensions by which customers evaluate and perceive the attributes of their banks, i.e. service quality, credit availability, price competition, delivery system, promotion, reputation and differentiation. The research found that 52 percent of respondents had a relationship with one of the three big Turkish banks and there were no crystal-clear leading bank leader. However, there emerged a number of leaders: leader in terms of deposit base, a leader in terms of

loans outstanding base, a largest bank in terms of assets, a niche bank followed by a large number of followers. From the bank customers perspective, speed of services and decision process, security of funds and high condence, friendliness and helpfulness of personnel are most clearly the emerging important determinants. The results indicate that reputation, interesting advertisements and recommendation from others do compensate for overall lower scores. Designing a high service quality and effective delivery system mix therefore is suggested to have a major short-and-long-term impact on banks competitive position.

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References Abbasoglu, O.F., Aysan, A.F. and Gunes, A. (2007), Concentration, competition, efciency and protability of the Turkish banking sector in the post-crises period, MPRA Paper, No. 5494, 7 November. Akan, P. (1995), Dimensions of Service Quality: Expectations of Turkish Customers from Service, Bogazici University, Istanbul. Anderson, W.T., Cox, E.P. and Fulcher, D.G. (1976), Bank selection decisions and marketing segmentation, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 40 No. 1, pp. 40-5. (The) Banks Association of Turkey (2005), The nancial system and banking sector in Turkey, Banking System in Turkey Executive Summary, June. (The) Banks Association of Turkey (2008), Banking System in Turkey Executive Summary, October. Bilgin, Z. and Yavas, U. (1995), Marketing of consumer credit services in a developing country: a status report, International Journal of Bank Marketing, Vol. 13 No. 5, pp. 31-6. Devlin, J. and Ennew, C. (1997), Understanding competitive advantage in retail nancial services, International Journal of Bank Marketing, Vol. 15 No. 3, pp. 73-82. Kibritcioglu, A. (2005), Banking sector crises and related new regulations in Turkey, Macroeconomics, 0505006, EconWPA. Knox, S. (2004), Positioning and branding your organization, Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 13 No. 2, pp. 105-15. Kotler, P. (1994), Marketing Management Analysis, Planning, Implementation, and Control, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Laroche, M., Rosenblatt, J.A. and Manning, T. (1986), Services used and factors considered important in selecting a bank: an investigation across diverse demographic segments, International Journal of Bank Marketing, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 35-55. Malhotra, N.K. (2007), Marketing Research: An Applied Orientation, 5th ed., Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, pp. 505. Martenson, R. (1985), Customer choice criteria in retail bank selection, International Journal of Bank Marketing, Vol. 3 No. 2, pp. 64-75. Minhas, R.S. and Jacobs, E.M. (1996), Benet segmentation by factor analysis: an improved method of targeting customers, International Journal of Bank Marketing, Vol. 14 No. 3, pp. 3-13. Nunnally, J.C. (1978), Psychometric Theory, 2nd ed., McGraw-Hill, New York, NY. Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V.A. and Berry, L.L. (1985), A conceptual model of service quality and its implications for future research, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 49 No. 4, pp. 41-50.

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Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V.A. and Berry, L.L. (1988), SERVQUAL: a multiple-item scale for measuring consumer perceptions of service quality, Journal of Retailing, Vol. 64 No. 1, pp. 12-40. Sinkula, J.L. and Lawtor, L. (1988), Bank characteristics and customer bank choice: how important are importance measures?, Journal of Professional Services Marketing, Vol. 3 No. 3, pp. 131-41. Ta, H.P. and Har, K.Y. (2000), A study of bank selection decisions in Singapore using the Analytical Hierarchy Process, International Journal of Bank Marketing, Vol. 18 No. 4, pp. 170-80. Taskin, F.D. (2009), The aftermath of banking crisis in an emerging economy: evidence from the 1994 and 2001 banking crises of Turkey, Journal of Money, Investment and Banking, No. 12, pp. 37-41. Yatirim Dergisi (2009), Turkish Banks post record prot, available at: www.yatirimlar.com/ content/view/41632/31 Yavas, U., Bilgin, Z. and Shemwell, D.J. (1997), Service quality in the banking sector in an emerging economy: a consumer survey, International Journal of Bank Marketing, Vol. 15 No. 6, pp. 217-23. Ying, L.C. and Chua, A. (1989), The analytic hierarchy process: survey of the method and its implication, Malaysian Management Review, Vol. 24 No. 3, pp. 55-67. Young, M.R. (1999), Market structure analysis: a foundation for developing and assessing bank strategy, International Journal of Bank Marketing, Vol. 17 No. 1, pp. 20-5. Zeithaml, V., Parasuraman, A. and Berry, L. (1990), Delivering Quality Service Balancing Customer Perceptions and Expectations, The Free Press, New York, NY. Zineldin, M. (1993), Bank strategic planning process-mission, SWOT analysis and market segmentation, Stockholm University, Stockholm. Zineldin, M. (1995), Bank-company interaction, and relationships: some empirical evidence, International Journal of Bank Marketing, Vol. 13 No. 2, pp. 30-40. Zineldin, M. (1996), Bank strategic positioning and some determinants of bank selection, International Journal of Bank Marketing, Vol. 14 No. 6, pp. 12-22. Zineldin, M. (2000), TRM, Studentliteratur, Lund. Zineldin, M. (2002), Managing in the @ age: banking service quality and strategic positioning, Measuring Business Excellence, Vol. 6 No. 4, pp. 38-43. Further reading Julian, C.C. and Ramaseshan, B. (1994), The role of customer-contact in the marketing of a retail banks services, International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol. 22 No. 5, pp. 29-34. Lewis, B.R. (1989), Quality in the service sector: a review, International Journal of Bank Marketing, Vol. 7 No. 5, pp. 4-12. Lewis, B.R. (1993), Service quality: recent developments in nancial services, International Journal of Bank Marketing, Vol. 11 No. 6, pp. 19-25. Onis, Z. and Alper, C.E. (2003), The Turkish banking system, nancial crises and the IMF in the age of capital account liberalization: a political economy perspective, paper presented at the 4th Mediterranean Social and Political Research Meeting, Florence & Montecatini Terme, 19-23 March 2003. Samli, C.A. and Frohlich, C.J. (1992), Service: the competitive edge in banking, Journal Services Marketing, Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 15-22.

About the authors Hatice Camgoz Akdag has a PhD in the eld of quality from Brunel University, UK; MBA from Eastern Mediterranean University, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus; and a BA from Bosphorus University, Turkey. She was Assistant Professor at KIMEP, Almaty Kazakhstan between 2006-2008. Presently, she is teaching as a part-time lecturer at Kadir Has University, Fatih University and Istanbul Technical University. She has taught several courses in Total Quality Management, Operation Management, Marketing Research, and Quantitative Decision Making. Between 1997-1999, she worked as a research assistant at the Industrial Engineering Department of Eastern Mediterranean University, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. After four years of teaching experience at Isik University, she worked at The British Romanian University, Bucharest, Romania during 2002-2004. Then, between 2004-2006, she taught in Bahcesehir University, Isik University and Halic University, Istanbul, Turkey. She has also trained the Police Academy staff of Turkey on the subject of quality in education during 2000 to 2002. She has a number of publications on the subject of quality, Six Sigma and benchmarking and received two best paper awards from international conferences. Hatice Camgoz Akdag is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: haticeakdag2002@yahoo.com Mosad Zineldin is Professor of Strategic Relationship Management, and has a Masters in Peace and Development and a Masters in Psychology from Linnaeus University, Sweden. He received his PhD from Stockholm University where he also taught for many years. He is engaged in a number of research and consulting activities and is responsible for a number of EU/Tempus projects. He has participated in many international conferences as a presenter and as a keynote speaker. He has organized and chaired many international conferences. His latest book is on Total Relationship Management, 2000. He has held many visiting professorship appointments in several countries. He is a member of a distinguished international advisory group for improving the publication of scientic works of international journals. Some of his articles have been cited with the highest quality rating by Anbar Electronic Intelligence and others have been positioned in the top ten list by Emeralds readers and reviewers.

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