Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

An investigation of service quality assessments across retail formats

An investigation of service quality assessments across retail formats Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the existence of differences in service quality assessments across distinct retail store formats. We address customers’ quality assessments for physical aspects, personal interactions, reliability and policies dimensions in hypermarkets and supermarkets to analyse the impacts for satisfaction and loyalty. Design/methodology/approach – The study builds on previous scales for service retail quality to develop a survey addressing customers of hypermarkets and supermarkets in Portugal. Data analysis addressed 248 complete questionnaires and involved statistical testing to explore differences in service quality expectations across retail store formats. The regression analysis was used to estimate impacts of each service quality dimension for customer satisfaction and loyalty intentions. Findings – The results support the existence of differences in customers’ service quality assessments across retail store formats, notably for the expectations about different quality dimensions. Differences were also observed on the impacts for customer satisfaction and loyalty, in particular for the dimensions of reliability and personal interaction. Research limitations/implications – The results suggest that managerial decisions regarding service in stores should be adjusted to the characteristics of each retail format. The generalizability of the results should be assessed by means of further investigation in other retail contexts. Originality/value – Retail customers patronize multiple types of retail stores that compete on diverse service attributes. Building on existing service measurement scales, this paper provides a contribution to understand customer’s quality assessments across distinct store types to inform retail quality and service differentiation strategies. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png International Journal of Quality and Service Sciences Emerald Publishing

An investigation of service quality assessments across retail formats

Loading next page...
 
/lp/emerald-publishing/an-investigation-of-service-quality-assessments-across-retail-formats-dWYvOcdSys

References (47)

Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 Emerald Group Publishing Limited. All rights reserved.
ISSN
1756-669X
DOI
10.1108/IJQSS-02-2014-0015
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the existence of differences in service quality assessments across distinct retail store formats. We address customers’ quality assessments for physical aspects, personal interactions, reliability and policies dimensions in hypermarkets and supermarkets to analyse the impacts for satisfaction and loyalty. Design/methodology/approach – The study builds on previous scales for service retail quality to develop a survey addressing customers of hypermarkets and supermarkets in Portugal. Data analysis addressed 248 complete questionnaires and involved statistical testing to explore differences in service quality expectations across retail store formats. The regression analysis was used to estimate impacts of each service quality dimension for customer satisfaction and loyalty intentions. Findings – The results support the existence of differences in customers’ service quality assessments across retail store formats, notably for the expectations about different quality dimensions. Differences were also observed on the impacts for customer satisfaction and loyalty, in particular for the dimensions of reliability and personal interaction. Research limitations/implications – The results suggest that managerial decisions regarding service in stores should be adjusted to the characteristics of each retail format. The generalizability of the results should be assessed by means of further investigation in other retail contexts. Originality/value – Retail customers patronize multiple types of retail stores that compete on diverse service attributes. Building on existing service measurement scales, this paper provides a contribution to understand customer’s quality assessments across distinct store types to inform retail quality and service differentiation strategies.

Journal

International Journal of Quality and Service SciencesEmerald Publishing

Published: Jun 10, 2014

Keywords: Service quality; Retail; RSQS

There are no references for this article.