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Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of the technical and functional dimensions of service management on customer satisfaction in the bank‐SME relationship.

Design/methodology/approach – An ordinal logistic regression analysis is used to examine a total of 221 responses to a questionnaire distributed to small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in Sweden.

Findings – Both the technical and the functional dimensions of service management were shown to correlate with customer satisfaction. Thus, SMEs seem to evaluate their banking relationship not only on the basis of the effectiveness and quality of banks' service outcomes but also on the care and manner in which the bankers deliver services.

Research limitations/implications – The study shows that relationship variables, such as personal interaction is a strong determinant for customer satisfaction in the bank‐SME relationship. Hence, there is a need for banks to focus training on understanding the issues of SMEs on a broader scale rather than solely on the sale of individual products.

Originality/value – The study examines both the technical and functional dimensions of service management in the bank‐SME relationship. Because most researchers treat ordinal scales as continuous variables, stronger conclusions can thus be drawn from the ordinal regression analysis performed here.