An Empirical Study Analyzing the ATM Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction Relationship in Rwanda

ATM as one type of Electronic banking systems have become a strategic technology in the banking sector by delivering banking products/services and are expected to offer competitive advantages to banks investing in ATM technology over those that do not. In Rwanda, the cash-based system is now gradually being replaced by the card-based system and this requires banks to improve ATM service quality to satisfy customers. The aim of this paper was to conduct empirical evidence from ATM cardholders of five selected commercial banks in Rwanda to analyze the relationship between ATM service quality and customer satisfaction. To achieve this objective, a structured questionnaire was used to collect primary data of 250 ATM users in five commercial banks from Kigali, capital city of Rwanda (Bank of Kigali, Cogebanque, Equity Bank, Banque Populaire du Rwanda Limited and Ecobank). The questionnaire consists mainly of 32 constructs observed under seven ATM service quality dimensions (Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance, Empathy, Tangibles, ease of use and Convenience) and a five-point rating scale was adopted as the scale for the statements formulated in the questionnaire. Findings showed that 70.8% of respondents were under or equal to 35 years old which presents a range of youths in Rwanda. From the results, 70% of respondents claimed that they have never been educated on utilization of ATMs. Using SPSS, customer satisfaction has shown a strong correlation with all seven ATM service quality. The multiple regression results identified ease of use as the most important dimension on customer satisfaction and it was followed by convenience, empathy and Tangibles. Therefore, it is suggested that banks could improve their customer satisfaction ratings by educating customers to use ATM and not forget other important improvements in automated teller machine banking services.