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Volume IV, Issue II

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1.0 Introduction
Retail sector is promoting the sale of goods and
services for individuals or businesses enterprises
and is becoming an end to end supplier across the
world to the end user has come of age world over.
The retail sector is booming in India consequent to
the liberalization. The rise of the young working
population, with hefty pay- packages, and more
nuclear families in urban areas, a rise in the number
of working women, more disposable income and
customer aspiration, western influences and growth
in expenditure for luxury items have been essential
reasons for phenomenal pace. According to the
Global Retail Development Index 2012, India ranks
fifth among the top 30 emerging markets for retail.
The recent announcement by the Indian
government with Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)
in retail, especially allowing 100% FDI in single
brands and multi-brand FDI has created positive
sentiments in the retail sector. (Aaditi Isaac
reports)
1
.
1.1 Growth Potential
The key growth areas include the urban, luxury
segment on one end of the spectrum and serving
the rural sector on the other. In addition,
government policy encouraging FDI in the segment
has resulted in a plethora of international retailers
keen on entering the market; American retail giant
Wal-Mart has tied-up with Bharti Enterprises and
global coffee giant Starbucks has tied up with PVR
Limited. In addition, Carrefour, Boots and other
retail giants are also expected to come in. With so
much action, it is natural that there is a huge scope
RETAIL SERVICE MEASUREMENT: A REVIEW OF RESEARCH
LITERATURE
K. Jayarama Reddy*
Abstract
Retailing is one of the emerging businesses in the service sector, which offers goods and services, these goods
and services in this sector need utmost concern for quality. This paper explains the tracking of services in the
retail service sector through a review of research, while drawing future research directions.
Keywords: Service Quality, Retail Service Quality Scale, Customer Satisfaction, Retail outlets, Users
perception.
* Assistant Professor, Siva Sivani Institute of Management, Secunderabad 500014. A.P. (M): 09393332651, Email:
kjr59@rediffmail.com
for employment opportunities, and experts estimate
that the sector will generate employment for2.5
million people in 2010. The top retail companies in
India include the Raheja Group, Reliance Retail,
Tata Trent, Future Group, RPG Retail, and Ebony
Retail Holdings.
All these are the factors for the growth in Indian
organized retail sector. The retail sector is growing
at a phenomenal pace leading to job opportunities
in different areas across the country.
1.2 Problems of Retail Business today
The organised retail sector in India has been
witnessing various issues like global economic
slowdown, competition from the unorganised
sector, the retail sector not being recognized as an
industry, high real-estate costs, lack of basic
infrastructure, supply-chain inefficiencies,
challenges with respect to human resources and
margin pressure.
In the present day of retailing, service quality has
become the basic tool for retailers to create
competitive advantage and to enhance shopping
experience. The quality of services significantly
affects customer satisfaction, company revenues,
cross selling and also repeat purchase behavior
(Berry, 1986; Hummel and Savit, 1988; Reichheld
and Sasser, 1990). The fast pace of the Indian retail
industry presents many companies with a host of
daily challenges. In todays competitive
environment and with the growing importance of
services, delivering high quality services has become
the basic retailing strategy.
Service quality is a complex topic, it is an important
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Volume IV, Issue II
approach to manage the business in order to ensure
full satisfaction of the customers which will lead to
the increase in competitiveness and effectiveness
of the service sector. Customer service is a key factor
in success of retail outlets. In the present scenario
retail outlets must win the customers trust by
consistently meeting or exceeding expectations. The
disparity between expectation and perception is the
key factor to determine the customer assessment
of Service quality and customer satisfaction, is very
important in retail outlets of India.
1.3 Retail Sector in India
According to Suja Nayar (2006) in her book Retail
Management, post liberalization era saw retail
industry undergoing a revolutionary change. India
is a land of retail democracy- hundreds of thousands
of weekly haats and bazaars are located across the
length and breadth of our country by peoples own
self organizational capacities. Our street bazaars are
lively, vibrant, and safe and the source of
livelihood for millions. India has the highest shop
density in the world, with 11 outlets per 1000
people. Retail in India has started with the concept
of weekly markets, where all the traders gather at
one big place to sell their products every week. The
people come to these weekly markets to buy the
household items. Village fairs and melas were also
common as it has more of an entertainment value.
Once the people started getting busier with their
lives, there emerged the mom and pop shops in the
neighborhood. After India became independent,
came into existence the system of Public
distribution of foods through the ration shops,
where food grains, sugar and oil for the daily
consumption were distributed at subsidized rates
through the government ration shops.
The modern corporate retail formats are of the
exclusive brand outlets, hypermarkets,
supermarkets, departmental stores and shopping
malls. But still the Indian consumer depends on
the self-organized retail shops for their daily needs.
(Navdanya Research Foundation, 2011)
34
. Indian
Retail Industry is a derivative of the growing
economy, changing demographics and preferences
of the Indian consumers. In the 1990s all the larger
grocery retailers have introduced structural changes
in the business, with the specific goal of acquiring
customer attention. The use of structural changes
has become so eminent that retailers started offering
rewards to this customers. Retailing industry are
becoming increasingly important, especially for
developed economies. Within that, the shopping less
than one umbrella concept continues to emerge as
a popular concept. The Indian retail industry is
divided into two sectors- organized and
unorganized. Suja Nayar (2006).
1.3.1 Organised Retail Sector
Organised retail sector refers to the sectors
undertaken by licensed retailers, that is, those who
are registered for sales tax, income tax, etc. These
include the corporate retail formats of the exclusive
brand outlets, hypermarkets, supermarkets,
departmental stores and shopping malls.
1.3.2 Unorganized Retail Sector
Unorganised on the other hand, refers to the
traditional formats of low-cost retailing, for
example, hand cart and pavement vendors, mobile
vendors, the local kirana shops, owner manned
general stores, paan / beedi shops, convenience
stores, hardware shop at the corner of your street
selling everything from bathroom fittings to paints
and small construction tools; or the slightly more
organized medical store and a host of other small
retail businesses in apparel, electronics, food etc.
Gupta, Dubey and Patani (2012)
14
.
1.4 Importance of Retail Service Quality
The importance of service quality has been
influenced greatly by the changing nature of the
world economies and the customers changing
needs, tastes and preferences. The move has also
been fueled by the growth in consumerism, world
travel and the competitive business environments.
Perez et.al., (2007)
33
observed that service quality
has become a critical factor in enabling firms to
achieve a differential advantage over their
competitors and thus, it makes a significant
contribution to profitability and productivity.
Indeed, service quality has become a key concept
in a competitive corporate strategy (Gronroos,
2001)
13
. Zeithaml, Parasuraman and Berry (1988)
39
,
identified two major payoffs of quality; Quality
creates true customers and that it leads to
efficiencies. Excellent service pays off because it
creates true customers who are like annuities. They
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58
keep pumping revenues into an organization.
Quality improvements lead to operational
efficiencies beyond those associated with scale
economies. This is because, quality improvements,
(both in products and services) lowers defects,
service errors and customer complaints. Thus
service quality does pay. Customer service
satisfaction depends on the quality of service
customers receive and how well this matches their
expectations. Realizing the rising importance of
quality service and customer care, many retailers
are improving their service strategies based on the
way the concept of quality of services is adopted.
1.5 Concepts of Retail Service Quality
A concept of Service Quality has emerged to
measure the customer satisfaction with their
perception in order to meet the customer
expectation. They are SERVQUAL, SERVPERF
AND RSQS. It gives an understanding about the
development of the service sector.
1.5.1 SERVQUAL
SERVQUAL (Parasuraman et. al., 1988)
31
has
introduced the mainstream method of service
quality and its subsequent assessment. SERVQUAL
was developed by measuring the service quality in
diverse setting, including an appliance repair and
maintenance firm, several retail banks, a long
distance telephone provider, a security broker and
credit card companies as the authors intended to
develop and design a scale which could be used for
measuring service quality across service
environments. The bottom line of such method
distinct allows for understanding gaps, but not the
actual performance related issues.
1.5.2 SERVPERF
Conceptually, this gap assessment assumes that the
statement of desired attribute levels is the yardstick
a consumer uses to assess store service performance,
Carman (1990). Schnieder and White (2004)
provide a list of several other yardsticks can be used
by a consumer to evaluate store service delivery.
Even empirically, several researchers find the
performance perceptions to be sufficient in
assessing service quality as compared to the gap
(Carman, 1990; Angur, Natarajan and Jahera,
1999). This resulted in the adoption of the
SERVPERF instrument instead of the gap based
measure of SERVQUAL. According to Cronin and
Taylor (1992) expressed SERVPERF is the
performance battery of SERVQUAL.
For retail services, ServQUAL is not adequate,
because it can be applied to all the sectors, which
includes banking, transport, airport, educational
institutes, etc. So, for the Retail Services, there
should be a separate scale to measure the service
quality gaps and meet the expectations of the
customers. Retail Service Quality Scale (RSQS) will
be the effective tool to measure the gaps in the
services. Dabholkar, Thorpe and Rentz (1996)
8
.
1.5.3 Retail Service Quality Scale (RSQS)
Realising the need for investigating the dimensions
of service quality in retail stores and developed a
scale to measure retail service quality, Dabholkar,
Thorpe and Rentz (1996)
8
developed the Retail
Service Quality Scale (RSQS) for measuring service
quality in the retail setup (Table - 1) to overcome
the constraint in service quality and improve the
quality of service to the customers in retail sector.
RSQS is a performance based measure of service
quality with regard to the retail context only.
Service quality is defined as customers perception
of how well a service meets or exceeds their
expectations (Czepiel, 1990
7
;Zeithaml., 1990
41
). In
todays competitive environment, organizations
should earn the customers trust by consistently
meeting customer expectations. The gap between
expectation and perception is the major
determining factor in a customers assessment of
service quality. One of the most important customer
service skills that companies should develop is the
ability to understand and effectively respond to the
customers needs and concerns. In the retail
context, perceptions of service encounters
accumulate over time and a customers relationship
with an organization are a continuation of
exchanges or interactions both past and present
Czepiel (1990)
7
. As retailers can create such effects,
service quality plays a significant strategic role in
creating quality perceptions. Duy Nhat (2007)
27
.
According to Seth and Deshmukh (2005)
28
conceptual models in service quality enable
management to identify quality problems and thus
help in planning for the launch of a quality
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Volume IV, Issue II
improvement program thereby improving the
efficiency, profitability and overall performance of
the retail store.
Thus, the measurement tools also should be
adjusted in evaluating the perception of the service
quality by customers. These demands for a
continuous effort to learn, validate and modify the
existing concepts of service quality were interest
to trace in the development of the models in the
literature. Different reviews on the previous
researches different measurement tools were
explained and applied to measure the service quality
however the most modern and appropriate Retail
Service Quality Scale (RSQS) was not experimented
at the Scandinavian retail stores. Considering the
importance of the evaluation of the different
dimensions of retail service quality and
measurement of those dimensions in order to
deliver high value to the consumer, it was deemed
necessary to conduct future research to gain an
understanding of the overall perception of retail
service quality by customers using RSQS. The
following Table-1 explains about the descriptions
of the dimensions and definitions.
1.6 Literature Review on Retail Service
Quality Scale (RSQS)
Service literature, comprising empirical studies
mostly undertaken in the advanced Western
societies, tends to view service quality as a major
construct in explaining customer satisfaction
(Omachonu et. al., 2008
29
; Jamal and Naser, 2002
16
;
Ueltschy et. al., 2007
37
; Lee et. al., 2000
22
; Voss et.
al., 2004)
38
.
This article explains about the RSQS applications
in various retail sectors on separate dimensions.
They are: physical aspects, reliability, personal
interaction, problem solving and policy, are highly
suited for measuring retail service quality in
clothing stores, banking sectors, transport, etc. also
proveing that the instrument is applicable in the
Malaysian setting. Leen, Jasmine Yeap Ai and
Ramayah, T. (2011)
23
Retail service quality is furthermore associated with
future consumption behaviour in terms of the
customers intention to visit, purchase and
recommend the stores to others.
Boshoff and Terblanche (1997)
5
, in replication of
Dabholkar study found highly encouraging results
for the RSQS applicability in the context of
department stores, specialty stores and
hypermarkets in South Africa. Mehta, Lalwani and
Han (2000)
24
found the RSQS five dimensional
structure appropriate for measuring the service
quality perceptions of supermarket consumers in
Singapore. Kim and Jin (2001)
19
found that the
RSQS model is useful for measuring service quality
of discount stores across two different cultural
contexts of USA and South Korea.
Brent Mckenzie (2006)
24
found in his research that
within a transition economy such as Estonia, retail
service quality is best represented by the three
factors of physical aspects, personal interaction and
problem solving in contrast to the five factor model
supported by Dabholkar et. al., (1996)
8
.
Service quality in retailing is different from other
service environments (Finn and Lamb, 1991
11
;
Table-1: Retail Service Quality Scale (RSQS)
S.No. Dimensions Definitions
1. Physical Aspects Retail store appearance and store layout
2. Reliability Retailers keep their promises and do the right things
3. Personal Interaction Retail store personnel are courteous, helpful and inspire
confidence in customers
4. Problem Solving Retail store personnel are capable to handle returns and
exchanges, customers problems and complaints
5. Policy Retail stores policy on merchandise quality, parking, operation
hours and credit cards
Source: Dabholkar, Thorpe and Rentz
8
. A Measure of Service Quality for Retail Stores: Scale Development and
Validation, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Winter, 1996.
Gagliano and Hathcote, 1994
12
). Since the retail
service is unique in nature, measuring retail service
quality will have to be different from the
conventional service quality measurement. The
RSQS has a five dimensional structure of which
three dimensions comprise of two sub-dimensions
each. Dabholkar, Thorpe and Rentz (1996)
8
tested
the RSQS with Department Store customers and
the scale was found to possess strong validity and
reliability, the scale was suited for studying retail
businesses that offer a mix of services and goods.
The instrument could serve as a diagnostic tool that
would allow retailers to determine service areas that
were weak and needed attention. Since the
instrument is relatively recent, only few studies on
measuring service quality was conducted in retail
sector depicted in Western and Indian Context as
shown in Table - 2 & 3.
From the above studies, RSQS was used in the
Indian Retail Industry since 2005 by the various
researchers. Some of the researchers felt that, RSQS
was not up to the mark with reference to the
dimensions,sub-dimensions level & designing of the
questionnaire. Some of the authors felt that, RSQS
effectively works in Indian context and explains
the measurement of the service quality gaps in the
various Retail outlets.
1.7 Indian Retail Industry
The India Retail Industry is the largest among all
the industries, accounting for over 10 per cent of
the countrys GDP and around 8 per cent of the
employment. The Retail Industry in India has come
forth as one of the most dynamic and fast paced
industries with several players entering the market.
But all of them have not yet tasted success because
of the heavy initial investments that are required
Table-2: Retail Service Quality Adoptions in Western Context
Authors Year
Setting Key Findings
Boshoff
and
Terblanche
5
1997
Department stores,
Specialty stores and
Hypermarkets in
South Africa
RSQS found to be a valid and reliable measure of
retail service quality.
Mehta,
Lalwani
and Han
23
2000
Supermarket and
electronic goods
retailers in
Singapore
RSQS scale was a better measure of service
quality for a supermarket retailer than for an
electronic goods retailer.
Kim and
Jin19
2001 Discount stores in
US and Korea
Five items designed to measure policy found to
be unreliable in both countries. Personal
interaction and Problem solving combined into a
single construct named Personal attention.
Measurement equivalence did not exist across
US and Korean samples. RSQS could not be
viewed as a reliable and valid measure for cross-
cultural comparisons.
Siu and
Cheung
2001
Departmental store
chain in Hong
Kong
Three items deleted in a pretest. Five factor
structure of RSQS could not be identified.;
instead six service quality dimensions emerged
from the study
Siu and
Chow
2003
Japanese
supermarket in
Hong Kong
Five items deleted due to low Cronbach Alpha
values. Problem Solving dimensions as given in
the retail service quality scale was integrated into
the Personal Interaction construct while a new
factor emerged from the study,
called
Trustworthiness.
to break even with other companies and compete
with them. The India Retail Industry is gradually
inching its way towards becoming the next booming
industry. The total concept and idea of shopping
has undergone an attention drawing change in
terms of format and consumer buying behavior,
ushering in a revolution in shopping in India.
Modern retailing has entered into the Retail market
in India as is observed in the form of bustling
shopping centers, multi-storied malls and the huge
complexes that offer shopping, entertainment and
food all under one roof. A large young working
population with medium age of 24 years, nuclear
families in urban areas, along with increasing
working women population and emerging
opportunities in the services sector are going to be
the key factors in the growth of the organized Retail
sector in India. The growth pattern in organized
retailing and in the consumption made by the
Indian population will follow a rising graph helping
the newer businessmen to enter the India Retail
Industry. In India, the vast middle class segment
and the untapped retail industry are the key
attractive forces for global retail giants wanting to
enter into newer markets, which in turn will help
the Indian Retail Industry to grow faster. Indian
Table-3: Retail Service Quality Adoptions in Indian Context
Authors Year
Setting Key Findings
Kaul15 2005
Specialty apparel
stores in India
RSQS dimensions not valid in India.
Indian retailing found to have a four
dimension structure. At the sub-
dimensions level, a four structure
instead of six factors was supported.
Sanjeev
Varshney and
Amit Goyal
2006
Out shopping
Behavior in a
Small Indian
Town: An
Exploratory
Study
Proposed that Layout and color,
conventional location, value price, sales
effort and store service will effect
greatly in Retail store image and
personality.
Nallamalli,
Udaya
Bhaskar &
Raja
Shekhar26
2011
A study of select
metropolitan city,
Hyderabad
Study conducted on five dimensions
such as Physical Aspects, Reliability,
Personal Interaction, Problem Solving
and Policy.
Kumar and
Barani20
2012
Organized
Retailing at
Bangalore City,
India
Empirical study examines the
dimensions and their levels of service
quality that have significant effect on
customer satisfaction in organized
retailing. However, by using Statistic
software only four factors, namely,
reliability, customer knowledge,
credibility and tangible have significant
effect on customer satisfaction that
indicated to improve customer
satisfaction
Abdus Samad
and
Ravichandran2
2012
Organised Food
Retailers in India
Service quality issues like Physical
Aspects, Reliability, Personal
Interaction, Problem Solving and
Policy.
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retail is expected to grow 25 percent annually.
Modern retail in India could be worth US$ 175-
200 billion by 2016.The Food Retail Industry in
India dominates the shopping basket. The Mobile
phone Retail Industry in India is already a US$ 16.7
billion business, growing at over 20 per cent per
year. The future of the Indian Retail Industry looks
promising with the growth of the market, with the
government policies becoming more favorable and
the emerging technologies facilitating operations.
Retailers provide a combination of goods and
services to their customers. Retailing has been
characterised as a service with high degree of labour
intensity and low degree of interaction and
customization Tan and Mehta (1994)
36
. Examples
of retailers in Kenya include the supermarkets,
kiosks (very small convenience stores), hawkers,
butcheries, fuel stations, bookshops, hotels,
chemists, banks, ordinary shops, auto dealers, cloth
stores, jewelry stores, gift shops, shoe stores,
furniture stores, music stores and hair salons among
others Kagira and Kimani (2010)
18
. While the
traditional marketing emphaseson product quality
(goods), growing research in service quality has
made many retailers to understand the importance
of service quality in their retail offerings Bougoure
and Lee (2009)
6
. A positive customer perception of
service quality can greatly influence a firms
performance and competitiveness.
Anselmsson, Johansson and Persson (2007)
3
suggested that Service has traditionally been a
forceful competitive tool in grocery retailing. The
overall aim of this study was to enhance the
understanding of customer perceived service quality
with reference to grocery retailing. The result shows
that the traditional grocery store performs better
on all service attributes, specifically on assortment
issues. Durvasula (2010)
9
examines the service
quality perceptions of consumers towards retailers
in Singapore. He first examines the dimensionality
and reliability of this scale. Subsequently, analysis
by various demographic groups revealed significant
gaps in service quality; the gaps in quality were
much higher for some service quality dimensions
than for others.
Services are increasingly becoming a larger portion
of many organisations regionally, nationally, and
globally and are considered as a tool for revenue
streams. Todays knowledge of intensive services
in businesses require reliable methods of
measurement, assessment, and improvement
Spohrer and Maglio (2008)
35
. Service quality is
determined by calculating the difference between
two scores where better service quality results in a
smaller gap Landrum, et. al., (2008)
21
.Johneston
(1997)
17
did comprehensive empirical experiments
on service quality dimensions offered by
Parasuraman, et. al., (1985
32
& 1988)
31
in ten
service organizations in England. At first, they
presented a list of 12 factors, and then after further
research, they offered a list of 18 factors related to
customer satisfaction and shows it as a key factor
in creating customers willingness for future
purchase. Furthermore, the satisfied customers will
probably talk to others about their good experiences.
Although satisfaction has been defined as the
difference between expectation and performance,
but there are differences between quality and
satisfaction. For example, Parasuraman et. al.,
(1991)
30
say that satisfaction is a decision made after
experience while quality is not the same.
The other studies conducted also found encouraging
results of RSQS, such as Sanjeev Varshney and Amit
Goyal (2006), Nallamalli, Udaya Bhaskar and Raja
Shekhar (2011)
36
, Arun Kumar, Manjunath and
Shivashankar (2012)
4
and Abdus Samad and
Ravichandran
2
(2012).
Nallamalli, Udaya Bhaskar and Raja Shekhar
(2011)
26
studied the impact of Service Quality on
Apparel Retail Customer Satisfaction and also
identified the critical factors of service quality from
customers perspective. The sample consists of 250
respondents form the Metropolitan City Hyderabad
and administered a structured questionnaire on
RSQS, for data collection. The study identifies the
critical factors of Apparel Retail Service Quality and
evaluates the impact of service quality on retail
customer satisfaction.
Arun Kumar, Manjunath and Shivashankar (2012)
4
conducted a survey on five dimensions namely
personal interaction, physical appearance, problem
solving, policy and convenience were considered
for their study. The data was collected through
structured questionnaire from 200 samples in
Mandy district of Karnataka by using five point
Likert scale. They conducted multiple linear
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Volume IV, Issue II
regression analysis to know the impact of service
quality on customer satisfaction&it was observed
that there is a strong relationship between service
quality and customer satisfaction. The result shows
on all the dimensions such as personal interaction,
physical appearance, problem solving, policy and
convenience have the significance value less than
.05 (p-.05). It is also found from the coefficient table,
that personal interaction of discount stores is (:.547
and significance p:.000). Hence there is a
significance difference between personal
interaction and customer satisfaction. In terms of
policy the value was .664 and the p value was
.000, therefore it shows that policy also positively
influencesthe overall satisfaction of discount stores.
The next dimension was physical appearance with
value was -.203 and the p value was .000, and it
shows that this factor also have positive influence
and overall satisfaction. With regard to the problem
solving and convenience the value was .114, .170
and the p value was .000, which shows that these
two factors also have positive influence and overall
satisfaction.
Sanjeev Varshney and Amit Goyal (2006),
Nallamalli, Udaya Bhaskar and Raja Shekhar
(2011)
26
, Kumar and Barani (2012)
20
and Abdus
Samad and Ravichandran
2
(2012) found that
majority of the Service Quality aspects had a
positive impact on the overall service quality. The
results were fruitful and the study helps to improve
the service quality in retail outlets.
It can be derived from the research that, Retail
Service Quality Scale helps the retailers to detect
a) most required areas within the store b) and focus
its resources on improving the service quality. Some
Retailers may like to apply multi-dimensional
service quality scale, which was developed and used
globally as well as in the Indian retail setting. Since
the organized retail stores are growing in India, the
focus should also be on finding the customer
preferences towards store, products and employee
involvement.
1.8 Limitations and Implications of the
Study
Through the RSQS scale application in different
countries, its applicability has clear limitations. In
the light of the many limitations that are inherent
in the application and administration of RSQS, it
would be right to conclude that different retail
settings are perceived to provide different sets of
services to the customers. Hence, it would be
appropriate to suggest that the RSQS may be
adapted, modified and validated in the context of
the specific retail setting being studied. Recent
research suggests that culture may play a significant
role in determining how customers perceive service
quality.
1.9 Gaps in RSQS
The following gaps were found.
1. RSQS has been known for its adaptability in
the western context, wherein the users are
distinctly different in terms of their
personality, assertiveness and their
preferences.
2. There has been only one study which
attempted at testing the adaptability of RSQS
in the Indian context Kaul (2005)
15
. This study
clearly suggested that the dimensions of RSQS
are not stable in Indian context.
3. RSQstested any comprehension models
delineating the variables in the models to
clearly spell the relationships and their
directions.
4. There is a gap in explaining the relation
between RSQ and the ultimate outcome
variable customers satisfaction. Such
relationship is not adequately studied in
previous literatures.
1.10 Future Research
Future research needs to be done in order to study
the retail environment in India with deeper focus
on quality of services. Further attention on how
quality perceptions translate into store loyalty,
favorable word of mouth publicity and satisfaction
levels. Thus, it is an important aspect of service
quality in retail sector, which can motivate
customers and increase their support. Another area
of research to focus is on the service quality
strategies that overseas entrants are using in the
Indian retail market to steer market share from
established, domestic retailers. Since, multinational
companies are looking to expand their retail outlets
in India. Indian retailers must be vigilant to
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64
anticipate possibility of MNCs overpowering them
and taking away their established customer base.
1.11 Conclusion
This paper primarily intended to review studies
conducted on RSQ in Western countries, Africa,
Asia and specifically in India. The review of the
studies showed that all the dimensions namely
Physical Aspects, Reliability, Personal Interaction,
Problem Solving and Policy. The customers should
be satisfied and the management needs to take
necessary steps to improve service quality in all the
dimensions.
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Education, Collection of Articles, 25
th
June,
2012.
2. Abdus Samad, K. & Ravichandran, K. (2012).
A study on the Service Quality Determinants
of Organised Food Retailers in India,
International Proceedings of Economics
Development and Research, Vol.38. pp.213-
218.
3. Anselmsson, Johan., Johansson, Ulf & Persson,
Niklas (2007). Understanding Price Premium
for Grocery Products: A Conceptual Model of
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*****
The Author is thankful to Dr.S.F.Chandra Sekhar,
Professor and Head, Department of Human
Resource Management, Kompally, Secunderabad.