RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

A blend of qualitative and quantitative method­ological tools was used to analyse the research problem in hand. Exploratory method, specifi­cally literature review was conducted in order to gauge an understanding of the subject area under consideration.

Causal research design was also used to ex­plore the possible linkages between the variables (independent and dependent) and to demonstrate their contribution in the performance of the growth of the banks in terms of benefits achieved by implementing the tool by applying parametric statistics (f test, correlation and regression) and non- parametric statistics (chi-square).

Questionnaire was used as a research instru­ment and consisted of two parts of questions; with Part 1 pertaining to Bank’s customer acting as respondents and Part 2 of the questionnaire was used to understand the perceptions of the Banking officials regarding the subject. Part I consist of 23 questions related to the respondents (customers) branch, their account details, benefits they get from banks with respect to Information Technol­ogy adopted by the banks, the additional product purchased by them from the bank etc. Part II consist of 29 questions related to the respondents (bank officials) branch, designation, the measurement of their customer satisfaction, the CRM practices the bank is adopting and information related to cross selling of products and services by the banks.

Three MarketingZInformation System (IS) pro­fessors were asked to review the questionnaire for any possible discrepancies so as to establish the face and content validity of the study.

Also, another pilot survey was conducted in August 2010 on 20 bank officials and 20 banking customer respondents around NCR region, the compositions of which were similar to the final survey respondent’s profile (Burns & Bush, 2002; Malhotra, 1999; Parasuraman, 1991; Zikmund, 2000). SPSS was used to test the reliability of the data and yielded a high Cronbach alpha score (0.6).

The sample selection for the study followed sequential steps outlined as seen in the next sev­eral sections.

Step 1

The target population for this study was defined as individuals having an account in various bank branches of NCR region at the time the survey was conducted.

Step 2

To establish the sample frame, a list of customers was obtained from education (Students), govern­ment and corporate institutions and house hold of the four major regions, Noida, Delhi, Ghaziabad and Faridabad. It was clearly communicated to the respondents that their opinions should reflect their experience on the way they see the banking scenario and deal with.

Step 3

Stage 1: For the selection of the banks, Judgment Sampling Technique was conducted by the 3 panel members/consultants selected on the basis of their consultancy experience in the banking industry. Banks were identified on the basis of profit, market share, customer base and income based on consensus. The banks so identified were Punjab National Bank and State Bank of India as the Public Sector banks, HDFC Bank Ltd. and ICICI Bank Ltd as the Private Sector Banks and Standard Chartered Bank and HSBC Bank as the Foreign Sector Banks.

Stage 2: Simple random sampling (lottery method/ fish ball technique) was used for the selec­tion of the branch. The various branches of the banks were listed on paper and a lottery method of sample selection was used to select the branch.

Stage 3: Systematic sampling technique was used for selecting the customer. Every third customer who visited the branch was asked to fill the questionnaire. Simple Random sampling technique was used to find out the sampling interval. The same applies for every bank customer which was taken as the sample.

Stage 4: Banking official’s details were gener­ated on the basis of three different grades i.e. junior, Middle and Senior management. Every 2nd employee from senior manage­ment, 3rd from middle management and 5th from lower management was chosen as part of the systematic sampling method. This was decided with the help of the attendance list of various banks.

Step 4

The domain of the study was established and banks divided into Public, Private and Foreign banks of NCR region included customers and banking of­ficials from Delhi, Noida, Faridabad, Ghaziabad and Gurgaon. The summary of the data collection is outlined in Table 1.

Cronbach coefficient alpha was used to assess the reliability for a measurement scale with multi­point items (Hayes 1998). The coefficient, which reflects homogeneity among a set of items, varies from 0 to 1. However, a good reliability should produce at least a coefficient value of 0.60 (Hair et al., 1995; Pallant, 2001). Table 2 depicts the reli­ability analysis of the questionnaire (Part 1 and 2).

The demographic profile of the customers was generated in terms of Age, Marital status, occu­pation. The categorization of bank officials was done on the basis of the position held by them in the banking organizations.