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This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/09604520010307049. When citing the article, please cite: Anthony T. Allred, H. Lon Addams, (2000), “Service quality at banks and credit unions: what do their customers say?”, Managing Service Quality: An International Journal, Vol. 10 Iss: 1, pp. 52 - 6.

Bank and credit union customers were surveyed to determine bank and credit union service quality performance. The results of our study indicate that credit unions rate significantly higher than banks on 11 of the 14 service quality questions: access; courtesy; communication; credibility; security; empathy; tangibles; basic service; fairness; fixing mistakes; and guarantees. The findings also indicate that neither banks nor credit unions do a good job of surveying customer needs or retaining customers. Other results indicate that 50 percent of total respondents surveyed reported that they had stopped using a financial service provider because of poor service performance. The vast majority of that group reported that their decision was made because a bank failed to provide adequate service.

Chief executive officers (CEOs) at America’s top 100 commercial banks, savings institutions and credit unions were surveyed to determine the importance of cost containment and customer retention practices. The study explores differences that exist among the three types of financial institutions. The results of the survey indicate that commercial bank CEOs rate themselves higher than others in almost all areas of cost containment and customer service. Commercial bank and credit union CEOs gave highest priority to customer retention items. Principles for improving service quality and customer retention are discussed in detail.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the quality of the banking services in a rather neglected context, i.e. quality of banking services that target the student population. The goals were: to highlight the importance of student population as in the long run profitable market for personal banking services, to determine whether there are significant differences between student perceptions of and expectations from the quality of banking services as well as which dimensions students find to be the most significant and which the least significant in assessing the quality of banking services.

A summary of the theoretical framework is followed by the results of a research using the SERVQUAL instrument.

Despite a steady increase in the number of students over the past few years, bank managers have not yet realized their full potential. The results point to a gap in the quality of the banking services on all five dimensions of the SERVQUAL model. It is necessary to improve the banking service on all dimensions, and particularly with regard to “reliability,” “assurance” and “responsiveness,” in which the gap was observed to be the largest.

The research used a convenient sample. Therefore, it is impossible to generalize research findings based on the data processed, but only point to their being indicative.

Banks should by no means neglect the student population that possesses information knowledge, essential for the use of modern banking services. Bank managers should pay more attention to the needs of this growing segment of potential highly profitable customers.

The necessity to provide a more flexible response to the needs and requirements of students as a target market segment is discussed, along with potential importance of this segment for banks’ future business operations.

Legislative hearings are a relatively new way of encouraging citizen participation in administrative law making within China. The first such hearing in Liaoning Province (Dalian City) was held in April 2005. The purpose of this paper is to examine the detail of the hearing process and attempts to assess its effectiveness as a mechanism for engagement between citizen and the state.

The authors consider both the practicalities of running a public hearing and its influence on the legal regulations under scrutiny. More generally, and within the limits of one case study, we consider whether hearings have the potential to shift the balance of power away from the state and its officials towards a more inclusive form of decision‐making.

Legislative public hearings appear to offer the opportunity for public engagement. The out‐workings of these in practice, if the Dalian case study and secondary evidence from five other Chinese cities is typical, suggests practical limitations, some of which are bound up with the cultural origins of a paternalistic public sector in China and deference to authority.

This paper examines whether citizen participation has been influenced by the wider global reform process of new public management and modernisation, synonymous with developed countries and offers insight into a more inclusive form of decision making for other public services.

THE topics of the Library Association Conference and the election of the Council of the Association naturally absorb a great deal of attention this month. To deal with the second first: there were few novelties in the nominations, and most of the suggested new Councillors are good people; so that a fairly good Council should result. The unique thing, as we imagine, about the Library Association is the number of vice‐presidents, all of whom have Council privileges. These are not elected by the members but by the Council, and by the retiring Council; they occupy a position analagous to aldermen in town councils, and are not amenable to the choice or desires of the members at large. There are enough of them, too, if they care to be active, to dominate the Council. Fortunately, good men are usually elected, but recently there has been a tendency to elect comparatively young men to what are virtually perpetual seats on the Council, simply, if one may judge from the names, because these men occupy certain library positions. It, therefore; is all the more necessary that the electors see that men who really represent the profession get the seats that remain.

THE Electronic Computer Exhibition and the B.I.M. conference have provided material for serious contemplation. Sir Harold Gillett, Lord Mayor of London, opening the Exhibition suggested that we are living in the age of the second industrial revolution. There are some who share the Lord Mayor's view and others who take the whole matter in their stride. One thing is certain, we shall be able to do more—and do it more efficiently.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.