Assessing Service Quality In Caculo and

Delfino’sGroup No.1

Ankur Mukherjee 2014007Eldhose Varghese 2014079Anshima Agarwal 2014136

Pushkaraj Kulkarni 2014163Shonit Naralkar 2014172Eden Fernandes 2014202

Pooja Mohta 2014218Praveen Koushik 2014223

Motivation

• India has become the fifth largest destination in the retail space• The retail industry accounts for over 10% of GDP and around 8%

of employment• Retail market is expected to grow at 12 per cent per annum,

modern trade would expand twice as fast at 20 per cent per annum and traditional trade at 10 per cent

Source: Retail industry in India (http://www.ibef.org/industry/retail-india.aspx)

Research Objective

• To study the service quality of the two retail stores based on customer perception, using SERVPERF scale.

Business Problem for the manager of a retail store• “Which factors act as the key performance indicators from

a customer perspective?”• “Which factors give me a competitive edge in service

performance?”

Literature Review

• Service quality is defined as ‘a global judgment or attitude, relating to the overall superiority of the service’ (Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry, 1988, p16)

• The main service quality models are SERVQUAL and GAP model by Parasuraman et al. (1988), SERVPERF by Cronin and Taylor (1992), Retail Service Quality Model by Dabholkar et al. (1996)

• We have used the SERVPERF scale for our study for assessing the service quality at Delfino’s and Caculo

Literature Review (Contd.)• The SERVPERF scale consists of 22 perception items excluding any consideration of

expectations.• The SERVPERF Scale

• The tangibles dimension in SERVPERF, measured by 4 items, deals with the appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel and communication materials

•  Reliability, measured by 5 items, refers to the ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately

• Responsiveness, measured by 4 items, measures the willingness to help customers and to provide prompt service

• Assurance, measured by 4 items, deals with the knowledge, courtesy of employees and their ability to inspire trust and confidence

• empathy dimension of SERVQUAL, containing 5 items, refers to the provision of caring, individualized attention to customers

Source: SERVQUAL vs SERVPERF: round 2 in a multi-cultural setting, Lee, Jungk

Methodology

• Sample: 80 respondents is randomly collected from Delfino’s (27) and Caculo (53).

• An Online questionnaire (22 questions) was used to interview the customers personally.

• The questions covered all 5 factors of SERVPERF scale i.e. tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy.

• Data was collected using the 5 point Likert scale

Findings• The mean value for Tangibility is higher for Delfino’s than Caculo.

Also Tangibility is a significant factor• Responsiveness is highly significant and is found to be almost the

same in both the retail outlets• Reliability is a insignificant factor and mean for Delfino’s is higher• The empathy factor is found to be almost the same in both the outlets

but is not significant• Assurance factor is found to be higher in Caculo as compared to

Delfino’s and is significant

Conclusion• Customers perceive tangibility, responsiveness and assurance as very

important factors when it comes to choosing a retail outlet• Since the modern retail has more of help yourself type of structure hence

factors like good communication skills, employee attractiveness etc. which comes under Empathy fail to make a difference

• All modern retail outlets tend to have all varieties of products in sufficient stock and competitive prices and hence Reliability is coming to be irrelevant

• Based on the factors which are significant Delfino’s seems to have a better service quality in comparison to Caculo

Limitations• Small sample collected may not give results that can be generalized.• The manner in which questions are asked can be leading/misleading for the

respondent.• Respondent bias may creep in due to respondent’s inability to understand the

question or reluctance to share his/her view.• A point scale may prove difficult for a respondent to comprehend.• Responses may not be entirely correct since most of the respondents are in a

hurry after having shopped.• The responses may be based on a particular shopping experience and may not

depict the actual performance level of a retail store.