Measuring Customer Experience Quality in Banking Services in Serbia: Validation of the EXQ Scale

Abstract

Customer Experience (CX) has emerged as a key element in business strategies globally. With the increasing focus on the service and experience economy, understanding and managing the customer experience has become essential to achieving business success. As markets become increasingly competitive over time, companies focus on providing exceptional customer experiences as a way to stand out from the competition. CX is formed through direct contacts such as purchasing and using products and services, and interacting with staff; as well as through indirect contacts such as advertisements, user reviews, and social media. There is a growing awareness about critical importance of precise tools for measuring the quality of CX in order to obtain accurate feedback and take appropriate measures for improvement. The most applied scale for measuring CX found in literature is EXQ scale developed by Klaus and Maklan. Original scale was reevaluated, covering three stages in its three dimensions: the brand (pre-purchase), the service provider (during purchase), and post-purchase experience, extending the number of items to 25. 

The aim of this paper is to determine the possibility of implementing the reevaluated EXQ scale in financial service sector in Serbia. The validation of the instrument was conducted on a sample that consisted of 702 valid responses to the questionnaire sent to more than 2000 customers of banking services mainly from Vojvodina and Belgrade regions. The evaluation of the psychometric characteristics of the EXQ scale was performed using principal component analysis. The analyses were conducted at the individual level, which means that the sample size on which the analyses were conducted was 702 respondents.