Empathy of Bank Employees and Its Influence on Service Quality of Banks: Evidence from the Knowledge Economy of Kerala in Digital India

Abstract

ICT is being aggressively promoted by the Govt. of India (GOI) as part of its ‘Digital India’ and such other policies like JAM. In this ICT-thrust era in Digital India, ‘Empathy’ aspect of service quality of banks is studied in this paper, focusing on housing finance segment-a national priority. ‘Housing for All’ is a national goal of the GOI and topmost priority is being accorded to housing sector by the State and Union Governments and also by the regulatory bodies like National Housing Bank (NHB) and Reserve Bank of India (RBI). This study is based on the feedback from 600 housing loan customers of banks in Kerala – a State that strives to turn into a ‘Knowledge Economy’ or ‘Digital Kerala’ in the context of ‘Digital India’. This paper makes an empirical study of the service quality in respect of the housing finance business of banks with a focus on the empathy of staff. It observes that even in this ICT era, a real ‘Willingness to help’ and other empathy values for the bank staff and also a ‘Human touch’ in their deals are vital for success.