Identifying Strategic Factors of Service Quality in Organized Retail Sector

Transcription

1 Identifying Strategic Factors of Service Quality in Organized Retail Sector Dr. R. R. Chavan School of Management Studies North Maharashtra University, Jalgaon Prof. Anil Dongre School of Management Studies North Maharashtra University, Jalgaon ABSTRACT The explicit objectives of the study is to identify the factors of service quality that influence customer satisfaction.. A sample survey was used to collect data through the convenience sampling method. A twenty five item scale instrument designed on the basis objectives of the study was self-administered to 200respondents. The descriptive analysis was used to profile the respondents, while factor analysis was employed to determine important service quality factors in typical retail setting. The study revealed six factors of service quality in retail sector as physicality, reliability, dependability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy. The six service quality attributes had Eigen values greater 1 and Cronbach s alpha greater than 0.700, they were considered adequate and reliable in explaining variations in customer satisfaction. The study recommends that the practicing managers in retail sector should standardize these factors of service quality to assure all customers of equal value irrespective of where they experience the service. Keywords: Service quality, customer satisfaction, organized retail, Supermarket, customer satisfaction INTRODUCTION With a robust economic growth and a young population, India is presentlywitnessing a high consumer s demand which has led to a transformation of itsretailsector from the aspect of small and unorganisedmarkets to the shopping malls. As the number of choices forthese markets increases with the entry of new players, retailers need to understand thecustomersperceptions of the quality of services and products offered. This is crucial for retail firms towards the survival and competitiveness in the market and necessary to underpin service quality attributes in retail setting. However, the studies on identifying service quality factors in retail sector are limited in Indian context. Thus thisresearch study attempts to identify the strategic factors of service qualityin organised retail sector. Objective of the study: The study sought answers to the research question 1. What are the service quality attribute and how do they affect customer satisfaction in oragsnised retail sector? The underline objective of the research study is to identify the critical factors of service quality in organized retail sector in north Maharashtra region. REVIEW OF LITERATURE Parasuraman et.al (1985) developed the conceptual framework for the SERVQUAL model and the model was refined in 1985, 1991, 1993 and 1994 (Parasuraman et.al., 1988, 1991, 1993, 1994). He identified SERVQUAL instrument consists of five underlying dimensions, with two sets of 22 item statements for the 'expectation and 'perception sections of the questionnaire. Perceived service quality is measured by subtracting customer perception scores from customer expectation scores, both for each dimension and overall. 149

2 Valarie Zeithaml et.al (1990) conducted focus group interviews and conducts customer service in different service industries to develop list of service quality attributes which define service quality in general. Cronin and Taylor (1992) argued that using the difference score between expectation and performance in SERVQUAL may not be appropriate and they have developed a new instrument, which is called SERVPERF, to measure service quality based only on customer perception of performance. After many studies have examined the suitability of SERVQUAL in measuring service In the discussion of service quality, Gronroos (2000) refers to three dimensions of output technical quality, service performance quality, and organization s mental picture. On this basis, Zeithaml et al. (1996) have referred to ten dimensions of service quality in their primary researches. But, in their further researches, they found a strong correlation among those dimensions. Thus, they combined these dimensions and applied the fivefold dimension of Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance, Empathy and Tangibles as a basis for making a tool for testing the service quality, known as SERVQUAL. In their researches, they emphasize that SERVQUAL is a lasting and reliable scale of service quality (Parasuraman et al., 1994). They also said that this tool is applicable in an extensive spectrum of service domains such as financial institutions, libraries, hotels, medical centers although some of its components should be rephrased, or more components should be added to it. Many researchers have tried to use this tool in different service domains. Avkiran (1994) has introduced a model consisting of four dimensions (personnel s contact, reliability, communication, and access to services), and seventeen components., Othman & Own (2001) have offered a model called CARTER, consisting of Complaint, Assurance, Reliability, Tangibles, Empathy, and Responsiveness which includes 34 components. Johnston, et al. (1997) did comprehensive empirical experiments on service quality dimensions offered by Parasuraman, et al. (1985 & 1988) in ten service organizations in England. At first, they presented a list of 12 factors, and then with more researches done, they offered a list of 18 factors. In addition, many researchers have presented different models for testing the quality of services, by inspiring from SERVQUAL model. METHODOLOGY OF THE STUDY: The study employed a descriptive cross sectional survey. The study encompasses service quality attributes in organised retail sector innashik city. The study special focuses on the supermarkets and hypermarkets Nashik. The study covers the respondents who are frequent shoppers from shopping malls. The most leading retail stores Big Bazzar, D-Mart, Vishal Mega-Mart were selected for the study. The consumers of these retail outlets were selected to distribute the questionnaire. The structured questionnaire was given to two consumers in every one hour who shopped at supermarket outlets and who confirmed their willingness to response to the questionnaire. They were selected on based on purposive sampling. The study adopted a purposive sampling procedure from the select target population. The sample selected to the subjects giving them equal opportunity of being sampled and a final sample size of 200 respondents was drawn. The Service quality scale questionnaire developed as per the study was used as the data collection instrument. The questionnaire has been slightly modified to ensure suitability for the research context and it mainly consisted with three parts. The fact was proved once the questionnaire was examined for the face validity by two academics who are experts in marketing and consultancy and two store managers from each two brands of retail chain chains. A seven-point Likert scale from,1-strongly disagree to 7- strongly agree and 1- not at likely to 7 Extremely likely was used to measure the items. Out of 785, 650 completed questionnaires were selected for the final 150

3 151 analysis after deleting 25 incomplete records with an effective response rate of 82.80% of the total sample. The structured questions were preferred because they minimized response variation, took less time to code and transcribe and they led to increased response rate. The questionnaire adopted is, unlike instruments used in past studies and most item wordings were modified to suit the study context and based on the focal point of the research study. Secondary data from published sources on service quality, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty were obtained from peer reviewed academic journals. Information was also obtained from books based on the Retail Management, services management also the reports including, retail sectors reports, economic surveys. Data Analysis: Confirmatory factor analysis was performed on the five basic dimensions of retail service quality. Factor analysis was used to reduce the items to several factors. Some items sometimes represent the same idea, thus these can be omitted if they are redundant or unnecessary. The number of respondents in the present research is 200. According to Hair et al., if the number of samples in the factor analysis is 100 or larger, factor loadings in the range of ±.30 to ±.40 are considered to meet the minimal level for interpretation of structure. Loading of ±.50 or greater are considered practically significant, and loadings exceeding ±.70 are considered indicative of well-defined structure and are the goal of any factor analysis. Table1: Rotated Component Matrix a Service quality variabl es Tangi bility Reliabili ty Respo nsiven ess Assuranc e Empat hy Depen dabilit y T1.913 T2.869 T3.509 T4.915 T5.850 R1.837 R2.913 R3.903 Res1.921 Res2.866 Res3.910 A1.947 A2.959 A3.938 E1.937 E2.783 E3.925 D4.915 D5.913 Source: Statistical Output

4 Source: Statistical Output The adequacy of the sample size Table 4:Result Factor Analysis The Factor Analysis Loadings T1 Factor1.913 T2 (Physicality).869 T3.509 T4.915 T5.850 R1 Factor R2 (Reliability).913 R3.903 D4 Factor D5 (Dependability).913 Res1 Factor Res2 (Responsiveness).866 Res3.910 A1 Factor A2 (Assurance).959 A3.938 E1 Factor E2 (Empathy).783 E3.925 Table3: KMO and Bartlett's Test KMO and Bartlett's Test Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy. Bartlett's Test of Approx. Chi-Square 1.475E4 Sphericity Df 171 The adequacy of the sample size was confirmed using both the Kaiser-Meyer Olkin (KMO) test sampling adequacy and Barlett s Test of Sphericity. In fact, KMO for retail service quality exceeded satisfactory values. The retention decision of each item was based on factor loadings which were greater than or equal to 0.70; cross-loading with the other factors were generally smaller than Table 2 Service Quality Factors in Retailing Sr No Factors No of Variables Eigen Values Reliability Statistics Tangibility Reliability Responsiveness Assurance Empathy Dependability Source: Statistical Output Percentage Variance Explained 152

5 Factor analysis was used to reduce the items to several factors. Some items sometimes represent the same idea, thus these can be omitted if they are redundant or unnecessary. The number of respondents in the present research is 650. According to Hair et al. [47], if the number of samples in the factor analysis is 100 or larger, factor loadings in the range of ±.30 to ±.40 are considered to meet the minimal level for interpretation of structure. Loading of ±.50 or greater are considered practically significant, and loadings exceeding ±.70 are considered indicative of well-defined structure and are the goal of any factor analysis. The use of factor analysis yielded six factors namely tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and dependability. The most important factor identified is tangibility consisting of four variables with Eigen values of 6.743, and the percent of variables explained by this factor is percent. The second and the third service quality variables identified are the reliability & Responsiveness with Eigen values of and respectively. These two factors consist of three variables each. Assurance explains the service quality variables to the extent of whereas empathy explains the same to the extent of Dependability has two factors clubbed under it with the Eigen value being Conclusion: This study contributes to academics by providing understanding in service marketing theory on dimensions of service quality in retail sector. One service quality dimension ignored by SERVQUAL, service blueprint was established and its significant effect on customer satisfaction proven. It was established that the five dimensions of SERVQUAL (predominant in literature) can be expanded six factors in relevance to organised retail sector. The study proposed a six dimension construct made up of additional dimensions i.e. dependability. The present research portrays a detailed picture of differentservice quality factors in retail setting. Ithelps the retailers to focus on the important factors for enhancing the customer loyalty and suggest service marketing strategies for better management of the retail store. REFERENCES 1. Avkiran, N, K. (1994). Developing an instrument to measure customer service quality in branch banking. International Journal of Bank Marketing. 12 (6), Baker, Julie; Grewal, Dhruv and Parasuraman, A (1994), The Influence of Store Environment on Quality Inferences and Store Image, Journal of Academy of Marketing Science, 22(4), Cronin J J and Taylor S A (1992), Measuring Service Quality: A Re-Examination and Extension, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 56, No. 3, pp Gronroos, C. (2000). Service Management and Marketing: A Customer Relationship Management Approach (2nd ed.). West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 5. Parasuraman, A., Berry, L. &Zeithaml, V. A., (1993). More on Improving Service Quality Measurement. Journal of Retailing, Vol. - 69, Parasuraman, A., Berry, L. and Zeithaml, V. (1985) A conceptual model of SQ and its implications for futureresearch, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 49, PG, Parasuraman, A., Berry, L. and Zeithaml, V. (1988) SERVQUAL: a multi-item scale for measuring consumer perceptions of SQ, Journal of Retailing, Vol. 64, spring, Parasuraman, A., Berry, L. and Zeithaml, V. (1988) SERVQUAL: a multi-item scale for measuring consumer perceptions of SQ, Journal of Retailing, Vol. 64, spring, Parasuraman, A., Berry, L., &Zeithaml, V. A. (1991). Refinement and reassessment of the SERVQUAL scale. Journal of Retailing, Vol. - 67,

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