CUSTOMER PERCEPTION ON SERVICE QUALITY IN CONNEXIONS A RETAIL SHOPPING MALL AT SALEM DISTRICT IN TAMILNADU AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

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1 208 CUSTOMER PERCEPTION ON SERVICE QUALITY IN CONNEXIONS A RETAIL SHOPPING MALL AT SALEM DISTRICT IN TAMILNADU AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ABSTRACT S. VIJAY ANAND*; DR. M. SELVARAJ** *Research Scholar, Coimbatore , Tamilnadu India. **Professor and Director, Sona School of Management, Anna University of Technology, Sona College of Technology, Salem , Tamilnadu, India. Retail outlet plays an important role in today context. Earlier only selected retail outlet were found with an exclusive range of products enjoying monopoly status. Now the trend has changed and many sophisticated Retail shops and Mall with wide variety of products are seen everywhere. Maintaining Service quality is an inevitable tool for those retail outlets as it acts as a precursor for customer satisfaction and Loyalty. This paper attempts to analyse the service quality in CONNEXIONS Leisure store private limited a reputed retail Mall operating in Salem district of Tamilnadu State with a sample size of 31 respondents selected on convenient basis. Percentage analysis and Chi-Square Analysis were carried out and the result revealed that, there is no significant relationship between the demographic variables like Gender, Age, Parking facility, Working status, Reputed brand available and the frequent visit to the shop except variety of goods available. Most of the customers are satisfied with the performance of the above shopping mall. KEYWORDS: Service Quality, Retail Service Quality, Customer Grievance, Sales after service. 1. INTRODUCTION Connexions -Leisure Stores Private Limited was started in the year 1995at Chennai with the aim of providing high quality articles with the reasonable price for the customers. Later, they have started about 9 branches in and around Chennai and one branch at Coimbatore and Salem. Customers can purchase all type of gift articles, toys, and variety of album of popular personalities etc under one roof. They are providing a sophisticated service to the customers with warm welcome. This study was conducted on at Connexions Leisure Stores Limited, Salem branch to know the level of service quality and its impact on customer satisfaction

2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE Retail Service Quality factors like Store Merchandise, Access, Problem solving, and Personal Interaction have a significant impact on customer satisfaction and factors like Problem Solving and Personal Interaction have a significant impact on customer loyalty in retail outlets (S.P.Thenmozhi and D.Dhanapal., 2011) Customers consider fast billing, parking facility and long hours of operations as prime services and key factors in Retail service quality (Dr. Chandan A. Chavadi and Shilpa S. Koktanur, 2010) in ( Shishma Kushwaha and Dr. Mohender Kumar Gupta,2011) 3. OBJECTIVES 1. To exhibit the profile of the customers. 2. To analyse the association between the demographic variables with the service quality offered by the CONNEXIONS. 3. To analyse the impact of service quality variables on customer satisfaction through percentage analysis. 4.RESEARCH METHODOLOGY To accomplish the aforementioned research objective, Primary data are collected through a well designed questionnaire and administered with 31 customers of Connexions in their mall premises itself. The service quality variables were measured with the 5-point Likert type scale ranging from 1- not satisfied to 5- Highly satisfied. 5. ANALYSIS OF DATA The statistical analysis used was Percentage analysis and Chi-Square analysis. Analysis of research data used the level of significance = The collected data have been analysed with the help of SPSS 16.0 package. 6. DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE OF THE SAMPLE RESPONDENTS In this section, Various Demographic information were collected from the respondents and computed below after applied percentage analysis for each category:

3 210 Sl. Demographic Variables No. of respondents Percentage No. 01. Gender 1) Male 2) Female 02. Age 1) Upto 25 years 2) Years 3) years 03. Working Status: 1) Working 2) Non-Working 04 Frequency of visit 1) Sometimes 2) Very often % 22.60% 25.80% 41.94% 32.26% 71.00% 29.00% 41.90% 54.80% From the above table, it is observed that in Gender proportion 77.40% were found to be Male and 22.60% were found to be Female customers. Regarding Age, 25.80% were less than 25 years: 41.94% were between years and 32.26% were under the age of years. While reviewing the status of working, it is seen that 71.00% of customers are working and 29.00% of customers are under non-working category. As frequency of visit is playing a important role in service quality perception, it is observed that 41.90% of customers are visiting rarely and 54.80% of customers are visiting very often. 7. CHI-SQUARE ANALYSIS Chi-Square is a statistical measure used in the context of sampling analysis for comparing a variance to a theoretical variance. It is a test in which the sampling distribution of the test

4 211 statistic is a chi-square distribution when the null hypothesis (H0) is true or any in which this is asymptotically true. As the demographic variables plays a important role in visiting the mall, the association of various demographic variables with the service quality variables were found using chi-square analysis with the hypothesis formulated below: 7.1)ASSOCIATION BETWEEN THE GENDER AND FREQUENCY OF VISIT TO SHOPPING MALL H 0 : There is no significant relationship between the Gender and Frequency of Visit to Shopping mall: H 1 : There is a significant relationship between the Gender and frequency of Visit to Shopping mall. Chi-Square Tests Pearson Chi-Square a Likelihood Ratio a. 4 cells (66.7%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is.23. By applying Pearson Chi-Square test, it is observed from the above table that the chisquare value is and Asymp. Significant value is which is greater than the critical value for this study (p=0.05). Hence H 0 is accepted and revealed that there is no significant relationship between the Gender and frequency of visit to shopping mall. 7.2) ASSOCIATION BETWEEN THE AGE AND FREQUENCY OF VISIT TO SHOPPING MALL H 0 : There is no significant relationship between the age and Frequency of Visit to Shopping mall: H 1 : There is a significant relationship between the age and frequency of Visit to Shopping mall.

5 212 CHI-SQUARE TESTS Pearson Chi-Square a Likelihood Ratio a. 4 cells (66.7%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is.29. By applying Pearson Chi-Square test, it is observed from the above table that the chisquare value is and Asymp. Significant value is which is greater than the critical value for this study (p=0.05). Hence H 0 is accepted and revealed that there is no significant relationship between the Age and frequency of visit to shopping mall. 7.3) ASSOCIATION BETWEEN THE PARKING FACILITY AND FREQUENCY OF VISIT TO SHOPPING MALL H 0 : There is no significant relationship between the Parking facility and Frequency of Visit to Shopping mall: H 1 : There is a significant relationship between the Parking facility and frequency of Visit to Shopping mall. CHI-SQUARE TESTS Pearson Chi-Square a Likelihood Ratio

6 213 a. 8 cells (66.7%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is.03. By applying Pearson Chi-Square test, it is observed from the above table that the chisquare value is and Asymp. Significant value is which is greater than the critical value for this study (p=0.05). Hence H 0 is accepted and revealed that there is no significant relationship between the Parking facility and frequency of visit to shopping mall. 7.4) ASSOCIATION BETWEEN THE WORKING STATUS AND FREQUENCY OF VISIT TO SHOPPING MALL H 0 : There is no significant relationship between the Working status and Frequency of Visit to Shopping mall: H 1 : There is a significant relationship between the Working status and frequency of Visit to Shopping mall. CHI-SQUARE TESTS Pearson Chi-Square a Likelihood Ratio a. 4 cells (66.7%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is.29. By applying Pearson Chi-Square test, it is observed from the above table that the chi-square value is and Asymp. Significant value is which is greater than the critical value for this study (p=0.05). Hence H 0 is accepted and revealed that there is no significant relationship between the Working status and frequency of visit to shopping mall.

7 ) ASSOCIATION BETWEEN THE VARIETY OF GOODS AND PRODUCTS AVAILABLE AND FREQUENCY OF VISIT TO SHOPPING MALL H 0 : There is no significant relationship between the Variety of Goods available and Products and Frequency of Visit to Shopping mall: H 1 : There is a significant relationship between the Variety of Good and Products available and frequency of Visit to Shopping mall. CHI-SQUARE TESTS Pearson Chi-Square a Likelihood Ratio a. 5 cells (55.6%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is.10. By applying Pearson Chi-Square test, it is observed from the above table that the chisquare value is and Asymp. Significant value is which is smaller than the critical value for this study (p=0.05). Hence H 0 is rejected and revealed that there is a significant relationship between the Variety of good and products available and frequency of visit to shopping mall. 7.6) ASSOCIATION BETWEEN THE REPUTED BRAND AVAILABILITY AND FREQUENCY OF VISIT TO SHOPPING MALL H 0 : There is no significant relationship between the reputed brand availability and Products and Frequency of Visit to Shopping mall: H 1 : There is a significant relationship between the reputed brand availability and frequency of Visit to Shopping mall.

8 215 CHI-SQUARE TESTS Pearson Chi-Square a Likelihood Ratio a. 12 cells (80.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is.06. By applying Pearson Chi-Square test, it is observed from the above table that the chisquare value is and Asymp. Significant value is which is greater than the critical value for this study (p=0.05). Hence H 0 is rejected and revealed that there is no significant relationship between the Variety of good and products available and frequency of visit to shopping mall. 8. SUMMARY OF PERCENTAGE ANALYSIS OF CUSTOMER SATISFACTION AGAINST THE SERVICE QUALITY VARIABLE IN CONNEXIONS Sl. No. Variables Not Satisfied/ Congested % Normal % Average % Satisfied % Highly Satisfied % 01. User Friendly Environment 02. Having enough Windows for billing 03. Parking facilities

9 Providing variety of goods and products 05. Product Price 06. Availability of Reputed Brands 07. Customer Service after Sales 08. Customer grievance handling system In the above table, eight variables were considered for the Percentage analysis to analyse the customer satisfaction on service quality and the result reveals the following: It is seen that 51.60% of customers were agreed that the environment are user friendly and satisfied: 48.40% of customers agreed that the Connexions are having enough windows for billing % of customers were satisfied with the parking facilities available in the Leisure shop: 51.60% of customers are highly satisfied with the availability of variety of goods and products in the retail shop % of customers were satisfied with the product price offered in connexions % of customers were satisfied with the availability of Reputed Brands % of customers are satisfied with the customer service after sales. And 58.10% of customers are satisfied with the customer grievance handling system of Connexions. Hence it is clear from the above results that the customers of CONNEXIONS are getting satisfactory service. 9. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS Earlier studies indicated that Factors like Store Merchandise, Access, Problem solving, and Personal Interaction have a significant impact on customer satisfaction (S.P.Thenmozhi and

10 217 D.Dhanapal. 2011). In this study it is seen that the factors like Problem Solving and Personal Interaction like Service after sales (64.50%) and Customer Grievance (58.10%) which indicates that CONNEXIONS are meeting the customer satisfaction through the above factors. Customers consider fast billing, parking facility and long hours of operations as prime services and key factors in Retail service quality (Dr. Chandan A. Chavadi and Shilpa S. Koktanur (2010) in ( Shishma Kushwaha and Dr. Mohender Kumar Gupta(2011).The result of this study indicates that 51.60% of customers were agreed that the environment are user friendly and satisfied: 48.40% of customers agreed that the Connexions are having enough windows for billing % of customers were satisfied with the parking facilities available in this Leisure shop. Moreover, there is no significant relationship between the demographic variables like Gender, Age, Parking facility, Working status, reputed brand available and the frequent visit to the shop except variety of goods available. 10. MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS The present study provides some guidelines for managerial action. First, regarding online shopping in connexions, Most of the customers do not know the facility of website: CONNEXIONSONLINE.BIZ. Effective advertisement in connection with the availability of online facility and the availability of branches should be made among the people so that the information can be widely reached. Second, Free home delivery concept may be introduced in order to attract people to utilise the service without engaging themselves for purchase and to help them to save their preceious time. By doing the above, information can be obtained from the online website and purchase can be made through phone call or any other media like SMS, Voice Mail and internet which will make mutual benefit for customers as well as for the management. In the Online website, in addition to product information, details of Connexions branches together with site and route map can also be included so that people can trace the shop easily for the valuable purchase. 11. LIMITATIONS AND SCOPE FOR FUTURE RESEARCH As this study is based on Connexions Leisure store Limited, Salem with the small sample, there is a wide scope for extending the research with large sample and with other branches of Connexions Leisure Store Limited and the attitude of customer and their purchase intention can be studied comparatively among various branches of Connexions. 12. REFERENCES 1. Shishma Kushwaha, and Dr. Mohender Kumar Gupta. (2011) Customer Perception in Indian Retial Industry (A Comparative Study of Organised and Unorganised Retail Industry RJEBS 1(1): S.P. Thenmozhi, and D. Dhanapal. (2011) Unorganised Retailing in India A Study on Retail Service Quality. European Journal of Social Sciences 23(4): www. connexions Online. Biz Website