SERVICE QUALITY DIMENSIONS AND BEHAVIOURAL INTENTIONS OF RELIANCE FRESH

Transcription

1 42 SERVICE QUALITY DIMENSIONS AND BEHAVIOURAL INTENTIONS OF RELIANCE FRESH DR. RAJKUMAR*; MISS PRIYANKA** Associate Professor in IMSAR (MDU) Assistant Professor in BLS (GGSIPU) Nowadays all the companies have realized the significance of customer-cantered philosophies. One of the key challenges for them is how they manage service quality, which holds a great importance to customer satisfaction. Therefore the role of the service quality in the success of organized retail businesses cannot be denied. It is vital for the retailer managers to have a good understanding on what exactly the customer wants. Expectations are well known to service marketers as most definitions of service quality revolve around meeting or exceeding customer expectations. Customers evaluation of the service quality that they receive is conceptualized as being influenced by their prior expectations. This section describes importance of service quality in those companies involved in organized retail, relationship b/w customer satisfaction and behavioral intention. Service Quality: Service quality is a concept that has aroused considerable interest and debate in the research literature because of the difficulties in both defining it and measuring it. Service quality defines as the extent to which a service meets customer needs or expectation. Service quality can be defined as the difference b/w customer expectations of service and perceived service. If the expectation is greater than performance than perceived quality is less than satisfactory and hence customer dissatisfaction occurs. Customer Satisfaction: Customer satisfaction means feeling of pleasure after using the product or service. Customer satisfaction is a critical issue in the success of any business system, traditional or online. To understand satisfaction we need to have a clear understanding of what is meant by customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is critical for establishing long term client relationships. Relationship b/w Service quality and satisfaction is the key to measure user satisfaction. Behavioral Intention: Behavioral intention refers to instruction that people give to themselves to behave in certain way. Repurchase intentions, word of mouth publicity, loyalty complaining behaviour are major components of behavioural intention. Behavioural intensions as a positive experience would prompt a satisfied consumer to revisit a store.

2 43 Reliance Fresh Reliance Fresh is the retail chain division of Reliance Industries of India which is headed by Mukesh Ambani. Reliance has entered into this segment by opening new retail stores into almost every metropolitan and regional area of India. The (Reliance Fresh) store is for everyone... Prices are affordable for everyone,". The first Reliance fresh store was opened in Hyderabad in November Reliance Fresh outlets are in Bangalore, Chennai, New Delhi, Gurgaon, Faridabad, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Mumbai, Madurai, Cochin, Trichur, Calicut, Chandigarh, Ludhiana. The Reliance Fresh supermarket chain is RIL s Rs 25,000 crore venture and it plans to add more stores. Reliance Fresh stocks fresh fruits and vegetables, staples, fast moving consumer goods and dairy products. The stores are already selling over 1,000 tonnes of fresh produce daily and also 250 categories of commodities. The company is approaching farmers directly for the procurement of produce, seeking to reduce the 40% wastage that occurs through the traditional supply chain. Besides, the stores provide direct employment to 5 lakh young Indians and indirect job opportunities to a million people, according to the company. The company also has plans to train students and housewives in customer care and quality services for part-time jobs. The Reliance Fresh stores are convenience stores with an area of about 1000 to 4000 sq ft. In Reliance Fresh stores, the commodities are classified into various categories like Staples, Fruits and Vegetables (F n V), Dairy, Processed Foods (PF), Food and Beverages, House ware, Personal Care etc. Few stores have apparel section also which has very low priced range and good quality clothes. A convenient store format, is governed by the Mukesh Ambani and is the most important part of Reliance Industries retail Business. Reliance Ltd. has planned to invest more than Rs crores in the retail division. It also comprises more than 560 reliance fresh stores all over the country. The outlet sells fresh fruits, staples, dairy products, fresh juice bars, groceries and vegetables. A distinctive Reliance Fresh outlet is around 3000 to 4000 sq. feet and accommodates catchment area of one to three Kilometers. REVIEW OF LITERATURE Gronroos (2002) has defined service is an activity or a series of activities of a more or less intangible nature that normally but not necessarily, takes place in the interaction b/w the customer and service employees and physical resources or goods and system of the service provider, which are provided as solutions to customer problems processes. Needs, wants, requirements and expectations are something that everyone has. Furthermore it is essential for services and products to fulfill the purpose for which they have been acquired and for life to have needs. Service quality and satisfaction: Service dimensions: Tangibles: Reliability: Responsiveness: Creditability: Security: Assess: Communication: Understanding:

3 44 Service quality has been the subject of considerable interest by both practitioners and researchers as mentioned before (parasuraman, valereie zeithaml and Berry 1985 ). An important reason for the interest in service quality by practitioners results from the belief that this has a beneficial effect on bottom line performance for the firm. However, practitioners often tend to use the term service quality and customer satisfaction inter changeably. Among academics the satisfaction construct is recognized as being distinct and has developed along fairly independent lines from service quality(oliver 1980 ). Most experts agree the customer satisfaction is a short term, transaction specific measure, whereas service quality is an attitude formed a long term, overall evaluation of a performance (Hoffman & Bateson 1997). Service quality takes place before and leads to overall customer satisfaction. Service quality has been found to be an important input to customer satisfaction (caruana & malta 2002). (Cronin and taylor 1992) originally hypothesized that satisfaction is an antecedent of service quality, their research with a malty industry sample showed, in a LISREL analysis, an opposite relationship. Customer satisfaction: Satisfaction is a person s feelings of pleasure or disappointment resulting from comparing a product s perceived performance in relations to his or her expectation. Customer satisfaction is defined as a result of a cognitive and affective evaluation, where some comparison standard is compared to the actually perceived performance. If the perceived performance is less than expected, customers will be dissatisfied. On the other hand, if the performance exceeds expectations, customer will be satisfied (Kong 2006). Customer satisfaction is critical for establishing long term client relationships. Relationship b/w Service quality and satisfaction is the key to measure user satisfaction (Pitt et. al., 1995). Few scholarly studies, to date, have been undertaken to identify quality dimensions and detailed aspects of services and their relationships with customer satisfaction ( Zeithaml et. al., 2002; Yang & Fang2004). Early concept of satisfaction research have typically defined satisfaction as a post choice evaluative judgment concerning a specific purchase decision ( Chuchill and Sauprenent 1992; Oliver 1980). Most researcher agree that satisfaction is an attitude or evaluation that is formed by the customer comparing their pre-purchase expectation of what they would receive from the product to their subjective perceptions of the performance they actually did receive(oliver 1980 ). Behavioral intention: Behavioral intention refers to instruction that people give to themselves to behave in certain way. (Triandis, 1980). In our model, behavioral intention refers to customer intention to shop in retail stores, specifically from hand- made carpet retailers in Iran. From the perspective of customer behavior, it is customer intention to exchange information, share confidential information and engage transaction both offline and online (Pavlov,2001). Word of mouth and loyalty are two positive results of intention to purchase. Even though it is nationally implied that intentions lead to actions (Davis, 1989). RESEARCH METHODOLOGY In order to achieve any goal and finding the approach to reach at the goal, is the most important stage of any research work. We can define research as a systematic activity which leads to reach to set of organized knowledge. A researcher made a series of attempts so called research design for discovering the truth. In order to extract true conclusion from a research it is necessary to use

4 45 a proper and scientific approach. Choosing a particular research method depends on the objectives and type of the subject and researcher s possibilities. Adams and Schvaneveldt (1995) advice research design refer to a plan, blueprint, or guide for data collection and interpretation set of rules that enable the investigator to conceptualize and observe the problem under study. In this chapter we try to explain the research methodology of our research in detail. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY To analyze the customer perception on various service quality parameters of reliance fresh. To investigate the features of Reliance Fresh. Research design In this study I have used descriptive research design because it describes service quality parameters of reliance fresh. Sample size: It is very difficult to study the whole universe. The universe for this study was visitors of reliance fresh. The researcher has applied convenience sampling technique for selecting sample from the universe. Convenience sampling involves using samples that are the easiest to Obtain and is continued until the sampling size that is need is reached. The size of the sample was 100 respondents from different categories. Data collection: There are two ways to collect the data primary and secondary sources. To order to achieve the purpose of the research, a questionnaire was designed on 5 point likert scale and survey was conducted at rohtak city. Statistical methods: Chi-square test Factor analysis ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION KMO and Bartlett's Test Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy..637 Bartlett's Test of Sphericity Approx. Chi-Square Df 153 Sig..000 With KMO measure of sampling adequacy is used to test appropriateness of the factor analysis. The minimum required KMO is 0.5.The KMO value for this data is.637. and chi square statics is significant (0.000 is less than 0.05) this means principal component analysis is appropriate for this data.

5 NAMED VARIABLE 1 2 FACTO sales staff are knowledgeable of products, price, offers etc my decision to visit this outlet has been a wise one COMMUNALITIES staff are adapt at using technologies for processing transactions bill verification and accuracy is very good here staff is prompt in handling queries i am satisfied with this retail outlet staff down here are 7 appropriately dressed interior decor in the outlet is attractive i do get special attention every time i visit parking space is adequate information on substitutes is forthcoming when a product is out of stock staff are prompt to apologize in the event of a mistake i would visit other outlets of the same retail chain the outlet is conveniently situated the billing process is time efficient the retail outlet is maintained clean the automatic price teller is easy to use at the outlet i would strongly recommend this outlet to my friends, colleagues and family members EIGEN VALUE TOTAL VARIENCE EXPLAINED The principal component factor analysis was used to explore the features of reliance fresh. Factor first has explored 6 variables namely knowledgeable staff, accuracy of billing, promptness of staff in query handling and satisfaction with the retail store. The second factor has explored three

6 47 variables namely staff of reliance fresh is well dressed, interior décor of the retail outlet is attractive and visitors got special attention every time they visit. The factor third has identified two variables namely apologizing behavior of staff in case of any mistake and customer intention to visit same retail chain at other places. The factor forth has explored only one variable namely the retail outlet is conveniently situated. Factor fifth has explored one variable namely retail outlet is maintained clean. The sixth variable also explored one variable strongly recommendation to friends, colleagues and family members. The first factor has contributed % variance, second factor has contributed % variance, third factor has contributed % variance, forth factor has contributed 7.831% variance, fifth factor has contributed 7.564% variance and sixth factor has contributed 7.38 % variance. DEMOGRAPHIC VARIABLES AND BEHAVIOURAL INTENTIONS Chi square VARIABLES value df p value Satisfaction and sex 6.998(a) Type of product and sex 9.511(a) Monthly income and frequency of visit (a) Recommendation of reliance fresh and sex 6.381(a) Satisfaction and age (a) Satisfaction and monthly income (a) Satisfaction and occupation 7.821(a) CUSTOMER SATISFACTION AND SEX : There is no significant difference b/w satisfaction level of male and female respondents. The chi-square calculated value is and critical value is at 4 df. the calculated value is less than critical value hence null hypothesis is rejected. The male and female customer satisfaction with reliance retail store is found significantly different. TYPE OF PRODUCT AND SEX : Male and female purchasing behavior is same. There is no significant difference b/w purchasing preferences on the bases of sex. The calculated chi square value is and critical value is at 4 df. MONTHLY INCOME AND FREQUENCY OF VISIT: Null hypothesis frequency of visiting reliance fresh and income level are not associated with each other. Alternative hypothesis frequency of visit depends on level of income.calculated chi-square value is more than table value at 5% level of significance with 9 df. This shows people of high income group more frequently visit in reliance fresh. RECOMMENDATION OF RELIANCE FRESH AND SEX: There is ni significant diff. b/w word of mouth recommendation about reliance fresh on the basis of sex. The calculated value is and critical value is at 5 df. Hence null hypothesis is rejected word of mouth recommendation about reliance fresh to friends relatives was found significantly diff. among male and females. SATISFACTION AND AGE: There is no significant diff. b/w satisfaction level at reliance fresh across age. Critical value and calculated value at 12 df. The calculated

7 48 value is less than critical value. Therefore null hypothesis is rejected and significant diff. was found across age regarding satisfaction with reliance fresh. SATISFACTION AND MONTHLY INCOME: There is no significant diff. b/w satisfaction and monthly income. The calculated value is and critical value is at 12 df. Hence the calculated value is less than critical value. Therefore null hypothesis is not rejected and no significant difference was found across age regarding monthly income with reliance fresh. SATISFACTION AND OCCUPATION: There is no significant diff b/w satisfaction and occupation. The calculated value is and critical value at 12 df. So calculated value is less than critical value. Therefore null hypothesis is not rejected and no significant difference was found across satisfaction and occupation RELIANCE FRESH MARKET SIZE sex PRODUCTS male female Total Grossary % within what 9.5% 90.5% 100.0% % within sex 5.7% 29.2% 21.0% % of Total 2.0% 19.0% 21.0% Confectionary % within what 40.7% 59.3% 100.0% % within sex 31.4% 24.6% 27.0% % of Total 11.0% 16.0% 27.0% Cosmetics % within what 44.4% 55.6% 100.0% % within sex 11.4% 7.7% 9.0% Total ready-made garments All % of Total 4.0% 5.0% 9.0% % within what 66.7% 33.3% 100.0% % within sex 11.4% 3.1% 6.0% % of Total 4.0% 2.0% 6.0% % within what 37.8% 62.2% 100.0% % within sex 40.0% 35.4% 37.0% % of Total 14.0% 23.0% 37.0% % within what 35.0% 65.0% 100.0%

8 49 SOURCE: based on survey % within sex 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% % of Total 35.0% 65.0% 100.0% This table explains product purchase pattern of the respondent s grocery, confectionary products are purchased more frequently as compare to cosmetics and readymade garments. Very small percentage of people purchases cosmetics and readymade garments from reliance fresh. 37% respondents show interest in purchasing all items from reliance fresh. CONCLUSION: The study has found that the reliance fresh has appointed knowledgeable staff, accuracy of billing, promptness of staff in query handling and satisfaction with the retail store. Another major finding is the customers feeling pleasure while shopping in reliance fresh because interior décor is very attractive. Employees of reliance fresh are well dressed and receive special attention. Another finding is apologizing behavior of staff in case of any mistake and customer intention to visit same retail chain at other places. Retail outlet is conveniently situated and maintained clean. The visitors of reliance fresh are overall satisfied with reliance fresh.