Empirical Study On Customers’ Zone Of Tolerance Of The Credit Card Services Quality

As the main carrier of personal financial services, credit card has become a popular payment tool for daily consumption and shopping. With the continuous expansion of the credit card market and the commercial promotion of the major banks, people’s concept of "borrow and spend" and "ahead of consumption" has been enhanced. In the daily consumption, using a credit card for consumption has gradually become a lifestyle of consumers. Although the the rapid development of the credit card market, the major banks focus on issuing credit cards instead of the quality of service, which leads to a variety of problems in credit card services. Faced with the rapid development of mobile Internet and Internet finance, if the major banks want to keep the credit card market share and core competitiveness in the fierce competition, it is necessary to understand the actual needs and expectations of customers, focus on the key factors affecting customer expectations and continually improve the service concept and service quality.Based on the summary of previous studies and the characteristics of credit card services, This paper constructed a evaluation system of credit card service quality and proposed the theoretical research model. Through literature research and interviews, the evaluation system of credit card service quality includes five dimensions:reliability, responsiveness, assurance, benefit, individuation; Based on the conceptual model of nature and determinants of customer expectations of service, this paper proposed three factors affecting customer’s zone of tolerance:service promises, word of mouth and past experiences.To verify the hypothesis, this paper used empirical research method. As the results of statistical analysis showed, zone of tolerance shows differences among five dimensions in different groups of customers except gender; Customer’s zone of tolerance shows differences among five dimensions in credit card service, the more important dimension, the narrower customer’s zone of tolerate, and the higher adequate service level and desired service level, also the most important dimension for the customer is assurance; Service promises, word of mouth and past experiences have a significant negative impact on customer’s zone of tolerance and a significant positive impact on adequate service level, and only word of mouth and past experiences have a significant positive impact on desired service level; Among three factors, which causes the maximum amount of variation to customer’s zone of tolerance is word of mouth, and past experiences causes the maximum amount of variation to adequate service level and desired service level.Finally, according to the research conclusions, this paper provides some theoretical basis to understand the expectations and needs of customers for credit card service providers, and put forward some empirical support and management advice to improve the credit card service quality and maintain customer loyalty.