Students’ satisfaction as a competitive advantage in the financial products market: A comparative study

Abstract

The main task of today’s banks, in both investigated countries, should be to prefer students’ satisfaction and strive to offer them what they want. Nowadays, banks own many tools for satisfying their customers, however, there are still a number of areas where financial organizations could focus their attention to improve their relationships with students. The next related issue within the context of students in the banking environment is to gain an insight into student preferences on choosing a bank or purchasing bank products and services and find out which country provides more advantageous banking products and services and under what conditions, which type of marketing communication they prefer, and whether current bank marketing stimulates them to purchase. In this comparative study, a survey questionnaire was developed which incorporated the main findings of current literature on this issue. The results of self-administrated on-line questionnaires from Czech and UK higher education students will be presented in this article, involving one university from each country. The findings highlight that, while the conditions of provided student bank accounts are very similar and this type of bank account is very popular in both countries, the quantitative research found big differences in satisfaction with personal contact in banks and students’ preferences. It was also confirmed that students in both countries resist special offers and marketing efforts of banks and in the area of their finances they rather trust in banking institutions with long-tested quality and reliability of services. The research also detected that satisfaction with price is significantly affected by paying bank charges among Czech students and further gaps in the range of banking products and the use of distribution channels are identified. A series of Fisher´s tests, Pearson´s tests, and Two-sample proportion tests were conducted to reveal these significant differences in student satisfaction and opportunities for gaining a greater competitive advantage.