274 Int. J. Services and Operations Management, Vol. 10, No. 3, 2011 Copyright © 2011 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. Measurement of service quality in banks: a comparative study between public and private banks in India Sachin S. Kamble*, Sudheer M. Dhume, Rakesh D. Raut and Ranjan Chaudhuri National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), Vihar Lake, Mumbai – 400087, India E-mail: sachinnitie@rediffmail.com E-mail: smdhume@hotmail.com E-mail: rautrakesh@rediffmail.com E-mail: ranjanchaudhuri@hotmail.com *Corresponding author Abstract: Service quality is believed to be one of the main determinants of customer satisfaction and purchase intention. However, there are very few studies that have been conducted to identify the important dimensions of service quality specific to banking sector. The present study is aimed to assess and compare the perceived level of bank service quality and to investigate the dimensions of quality banking service in private and public sector bank using an instrument banking service quality scale (BSQ) specifically designed for measuring service quality in banks. The study is based on the responses collected from 240 customers banking with private and public sector retail banks in India. The results show that the customers of public sector and private sector banks differ in terms of their service quality perceptions. Private banks are perceived to be superior on the service quality dimensions: effectiveness, access and tangibles whereas, the public sector banks score better on the dimensions of price and reliability. The study concludes that the BSQ instrument appears to be a valid instrument to measure the service quality in Indian retail banks. Keywords: quality; service quality; service quality dimensions; SERVQUAL; customer expectations; customer perceptions; banking; retail banking; India. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Kamble, S.S., Dhume, S.M., Raut, R.D. and Chaudhuri, R. (2011) ‘Measurement of service quality in banks: a comparative study between public and private banks in India’, Int. J. Services and Operations Management, Vol. 10, No. 3, pp.274–293. Biographical notes: Sachin S. Kamble is an Assistant Professor in the area of Operations Management at the National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), Mumbai. He holds a BTech in Mechanical Engineering with Post graduation and Doctorate in Operations Management. His research area of interest includes supply chain and logistics modelling, manufacturing strategy and service quality. He has been consulting in manufacturing companies in the area of productivity, manufacturing strategy and supply chain management. He has published several papers in refereed journals.