The study extends the existing knowledge by integrating the service quality literature with relationship marketing literature. A descriptive research was conducted to examine the influence of service quality (functional and technical quality), customer satisfaction, and trust on retail bank clients' commitment, towards their main local banks with which they have key relationships in Malaysia. The study was conducted among adults, aged 18 years and above, who reside in the Klang Valley. Convenience sampling of mall-intercept with questionnaire survey approach was employed to obtain 400 respondents. The findings of the study show that trust, technical quality and customer satisfaction have a significant and direct influence in relationship commitment. In return, trust was found related to customer satisfaction and service quality (the technical as well as functional quality). Interestingly, technical quality was found to have a greater influence than functional quality on both customer satisfaction and trust in banks. Subsequently, the causal path analysis identifies trust as having a greater direct effect on relationship commitment, while technical quality the greater overall effect (direct and indirect) on relationship commitment. Therefore, bankers who wish to engender relationship commitment, trust and customer satisfaction among their retail customers, should focus more on the service outcome than the delivery process of their services.

The financial services sector continues to play an important role in the economic growth of Malaysia. It was reported recently in the Ninth Malaysian Plan (2006-2010) that the financial services sector grew at an average rate of 8.1% per annum with its share to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increasing from 12.7% in 2000 to 15.1% in 2005. Similarly, the growth of the Malaysian banking industry has been significant and profound. For many years, the local commercial banks in Malaysia were enjoying good profits and growth that was brought by the country's superb economic performance. Despite the Asian financial crisis in year 1997, the banking sector in Malaysia expanded at an average of 7.3% per annum during the past Seventh Malaysian Plan (1996-2000). Nevertheless, the banks' merger, deregulation and increased competitive pressures have created dramatic changes in the Malaysian banking industry.

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