E-servicescapes in online banking: Towards an integrated conceptual model of the stimuli contributing to the online banking experience

The website is an important channel through which customers interact with and receive service from their bank. Hence, in order to attract and retain customers, banks need to monitor and manage the online banking interface, which forms the basis of the e-banking experience.This chapter argues the case for developing a more integrated approach to understanding and theorising the user/consumer experience of online banking and draws on the concept of the “Servicescape” (Bitner 1992 ).It is proposed that e-services, in general, are self-service environments, which means they are environments in which “there is no interaction between customers and employees” (Bitner 1992 :59). Therefore, the website or other virtual service platform with which the user interacts constitutes the online banking e-servicescape. In this chapter, we present a typology of the specific components of the online environment for financial services.