As strategic partners of businesses, customers have played an undeniable role in business growth and development; having a comprehensive knowledge of customers from different dimensions has always been emphasized. Meanwhile, the phenomenon of customer’s hope has been ne
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As strategic partners of businesses, customers have played an undeniable role in business growth and development; having a comprehensive knowledge of customers from different dimensions has always been emphasized. Meanwhile, the phenomenon of customer’s hope has been neglected in theoretical issues and specifically in the banking industry as an important principle in maintaining a continued relationship with customers. Moreover, from the perspective of correct and accurate understanding of its meanings, its concepts and hidden conceptual layers have been commonly overlooked. Thus. the present study aims to describe the lived experience of customers’ hope in to the services provided by Keshavarzi Bank in order to identify the dimensions and components of customers’ hope and then to present a conceptual model and structure of the study. In terms of purpose, this present study is an applied one, and from the perspective of approach, it is an exploratory one. In terms of type of research, it is an exploratory mixed one. In the first and qualitative phase, a purposeful selection and in-depth interviews were conducted with 9 bank customers with Sidman’s method and applying a phenomenological approach. The results were analyzed with a Colaizzi’s method. The results of the analysis confirm the emergence of the structure of customer’s hope in three general categories, including hope derived from ethics in the Keshavarzi Bank, hope derived from the service quality management system, and finally “hope derived from innovation and customer-orientedness”. Also, the three mentioned categories had a total of 6 concepts and twenty propositions, resulting from summarizing and modifying the initial 87 propositions. In the quantitative section, in order to investigate the originality of the structure, customer’s hope was measured based on the findings of applying and implementing a phenomenological strategy in the form of a researcher-made questionnaire consisting of 24 items. The questionnaire was designed, distributed and completed among 400 customers of Keshavarzi Bank. The results were analyzed by using SPSS, Lisrel and Smart pls. The results of the study in this section confirm the structure of customer hope in the form of a conceptual model extracted from the first section. Therefore, in the banking industry, by focusing and paying attention to the structure of the phenomenon of customer hope as the main themes and related concepts and propositions, appropriate measures and approaches can be adopted to create and manage sustainable customer relations.
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