Customer benefit sought segmentation of Mashhad's bank market

The main purpose of this study was the bank market segmentation or in other words, dividing bank market into distinct groups of customers who might require separate marketing mix. Gaining this purpose, 640 questionnaires were gathered. To investigate the reliability of questionnaires, content and face validity approaches were used. Furthermore, for the estimation of the reliability of questionnaires, Cronbach coefficient was computed at 0.92. For the analysis of data, statistical approaches including factor analysis, cluster analysis and chi-square test were applied. Principal components analysis revealed the 61 bank choice criteria being in the form of 9 factors, accounting for 65 percent of cumulative variance. Cluster analysis was then employed to divide the customers into 3 clusters due to their similarity of respondents to the main 9 factors. Moreover, chi square test showed that the clusters, associated with educational levels, marital status, family income, individual income and internet using rate, were different. As a result, rather than trying to compete in an entire market, each bank must identify the parts of the market to serve the best.