The impact of customer bank brand value congruence on online customer engagement behaviour. A study in the Dutch retail banking sector

Abstract

The financial crisis almost caused retail banks in The Netherlands to bankruptcy. Even now traditional retail banks are still dealing with an image problem, which makes it hard to maintain and develop profitable relationships with their clients. Value congruence, the similarity between a customer’s personal values and their perceptions of bank brand values, has been found to increase important relationship dimensions such as satisfaction, trust, affective commitment, and loyalty. This study expands that knowledge by investigating the impact of value congruence on new online customer engagement behaviours. These include positive online word-of-mouth, participation in online co-creation projects, online community participation and mobile banking app usage. Structural equation modelling technique Partial Least Squares (PLS) was used to analyse data gathered from 271 clients of Dutch retail bank brands ABN AMRO, ING, and Rabobank. The results show customer-bank brand value congruence increases positive online word-of-mouth and participation in online co-creation projects. This effect is fully mediated by satisfaction and affective commitment, trust does not play a role as mediator. Contrary to expectations online community participation decreases when there is good fit between the customer’s and bank brand values, and no significant effect on mobile banking app usage was found. Additional analysis reveals benevolence and self-direction are the strongest influencing value dimensions, these consist of values such as honest, helpful, responsible, choosing own goals, self-respect and independence. This knowledge can be used in marketing practice to change customers’ perceptions of the bank brand, and by this increase relationship quality and online engagement behaviours.